Pacific Northwest’s Ænigmatum have finally came back from the grave and released a powerful, monstrous and monolithic pieces of music known as Deconsecrate and is released through 20 Buck Spin. Now, Aenigmatum’s musical approach is taking branches of blackened death metal but also have some elements of tech death and melodic death metal almost if you were to infuse bands like The Chasm, Horrendous, Necrophobic and Stargazer but in a more sporadic, death, abstracted, progressive and technical sounding albums I think Aenigmatum takes the cake as a band who takes no prisoners to make this album as accessible, complex, dark at times and the overall detail on this album is immaculate that I almost became lost in a world full of headbanging wonders and I have been pleasantly surprised by this record on how artistic and creative this really is.
Musically, the album is excellent while the songwriting, heavy sound and top notch production welcomed us with some of the fastest, aggressive and ambitious Aenigmatum records to date. The band’s sense for melody isn’t entirely missing or faded out but instead, they’ve incorporated melodic intermezzos, as well as some quasi-contemplative and calm sections, that give a little respite from the full-blown and stone-crushing violence of the heavier passages throughout the first and secondary half of the record.
This shifts in style, however are presented in a perfectly blended and balanced mixture, never sounded artificial or out of its righteous place. With tracks like Despot of Amorphic Dominions, Forged from Bedlam, Undaunted Hereafter and Larker, Sanguine Phantom, this 45 minute 8 track album returned to create outstanding extreme metal signatures, phenomenonal songwriting, killer guitar riffs, great drums, amazing bass, stellar vocal ranges and the craftsmanship here is nothing but brilliant front to back. Deconsecrate is a well managed, articulated and structured album that promises to be Aenigmatum’s finest release to date.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
