Phobocosm - Foreordained

Angry Metal Guy

Montreal’s mega-heavy death metal merchants Phobocosm have a distinguished track record here at AMG, scoring high marks both times they were featured. It’s been a long time since their last appearance for 2016s Bringer of Drought, which Lord Kronos himself blessed with a righteous 4.0. He appreciated their nods to Incantation and Ulcerate and the no-nonsense way they steamroll and crush the listener with grim atmospheres and a massively heavy sound. Not the most productive of acts, nearly 7 years have creaked by since then, but we’re finally poised to receive third album, Foreordained. Have the years mellowed the monolithic caverncore style Phobocosm are known for? Not a chance! Foreordained finds them at their most murky, lurky, and nasty, as if the time off only made them more unbalanced. This is a good thing, though it may cause you some problems this December.

Listeners will be greeted by massive, doomy riffs on opener “Premonition.” Said leads feel threatening and dangerous, and you can sense that deep-dish insanity waits just around the next dark corner. The song is essentially an intro piece and a tease, laying down a dark, evil mood with a doom-centric, unhurried presentation that sets you up to be flattened by follow-up “Primal Dread,” which will knock your fucking head clean off with its unhinged blasting and ungodly riffing. This thing is a 10-minute fight to the death with an eldritch horror and all you brought was a 9-iron. That’s not nearly enough club and this thing will rip you apart with nasty nods to Immolation, Ulcerate, and Incantation. The sound creates a feeling of oppressive weight and claustrophobia, almost like a panic attack caught on tape, yet somehow the song doesn’t feel like it’s 10 minutes despite being so harsh and unrelenting. This is such a great and gruesome piece of repellant death, I want to devour it even though it will make me die of dysentery. And the goods keep on seeping under the door from there. “Everlasting Void” is an oversized dump truck full of horrific dissonance and brutal aggression with nary a nuance to be found. It swings from merciless blasting to slow, grinding paces that hurt just as much, and at no point can you untangle yourself from the ponderous web it weaves.

Track after track beats you with a grave spade and dumps you in a military-grade de-skinner and you’ll thank them for the kindness. The remorseless hostility of “Infomorph” will make you feel like you got run over by every Bolt Thrower and Just Before Dawn album, and the nearly eight-minute closer “For an Aeon” is a masterclass in tempo shifting for maximum impact, delivering a completely pulverizing and epic experience that will leave you wanting more wiolence. Speaking of wanting more, the album’s 41-minute runtime feels surprisingly brief despite the length of some of the compositions. The production is properly murky and muddy, but it doesn’t conceal what’s happening music-wise. Downsides? Sure, a minute here and there could be trimmed from the longer tracks, but the slick, intelligent way Phobocosm composes their music and packs them so full of compelling moments keeps things from feeling bloated. This is death metal made for death metal fans.

The bone paste that holds the Phobocosm show together is Samuel Dufour’s excellent riffcraft. The man uncorks a tremendous amount of slimy and abrasive leads and seasons them with dissonant phrasing to terrify the listener. Immolation and Morbid Angel often come to mind as touchstones for his playing, yet traces of Neurosis-esque bleakness still linger around the edges. His slithering riffs infect every track and I can’t get enough of his unsettling style. Jean-Sébastien Gagnon’s overpowered and abusive drumming is also a huge feature, with seemingly endless waves of blastbeats pounding you into the cavern muck. He also demonstrates surprising nuance in the slower moments with interesting fills that catch the ears. Etienne Bayard’s caustic, sub-basement death roars are the perfectly diseased cherry on top, feeling phlemy and vile while projecting great force.

Phobocosm are back and Foreordained is a mighty reminder of what they’re capable of. Massive, harrowing, and unmovable, this is the kind of scuzzy caverncore that vomits all over your carefully curated year-end lists. It’s certainly one of the best death metal releases in a year chocked full of high-quality genre entries. Thus, it is Foreordained that you’ll see this again during the impending list season.



Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/foreordained
Websites facebook.com/phobocosm
Releases Worldwide: December 8th, 2023

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