Many bands within the melodic death metal community that sounds very alike to The Black Dahlia Murder can often times be overwhelming, overstretched and repetitive at times but it wasn’t until Missouri’s Summoning The Lich that have a style very appropriate, apprehensive and comprehended have met my expectations and with their debut full-length United In Chaos released on Prosthetic Records, this is a well crafted and symbolic album surely worth your immediate attention. Musically, the album’s lyricism is absolutely intelligent as there’s so much depth and emphasis to capture emotion, symbolism and strength to formulate these tracks bringing a reminiscent of other bands such as Through The Eyes Of The Dead, Job For A Cowboy, Dying Fetus, Ingested and The Convalescence which many of these bands are heavy influences since you have tracks such as The Gatecreeper, Death Crystal, The Lure Of The Necromancer, and Demon Of The Snow have some pummeling drums and explosive arrangement segments as these musicians have found a sound so naturalistic that it keeps the atmospheric passages more stabled and fresh without making the songs feel stale and recycled.
There’s also some slam compositions as the band studied real hard to fundamentally transform into multiple signature components that’s gritty, fun and a perfectly authentic. The songs are darkened, emotional, menacing and chaotic which demonstrates how complex this album can fully demonstrate within the extreme metal scene. From the beautiful album art to the magnificent production values, this album demonstrates wide variety of mixed elemental genres including deathcore but focused more on the blackened and atmospheric passages while maintaining a technical, melodic and straightforward death metal sound as these soundscapes feel its welcomed and stay the course. Not only its quite the experience to hear a brand new band like Summoning The Lich because it takes many musical influences but found a way to make it extremely compelling and fresh start to finish.
Even the instrumentations are wide and often times unexpected as there’s so much discovery that is within the album’s enjoyment to set the listener’s mind into a jaw-dropping universe. And while these musicians manage to retain originality and dynamic surprises, you’ll be amazed to hear top-notch musicianship, capable of intricate modern riffs as well as some introspective melodies, and all without running into any jumpy transitions just makes the record naturalistic. But overall, United In Chaos is the perfect blend of technicality, brutality and excellence at finest to see Missouri’s Summoning The Lich on the rise to find their sound and this is perfect for fans of deathcore and technical death metal if you want diversity and experimentation then you cannot pass this up.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
