Corpsessed, Abysmal Thresholds

For Finland’s Corpsessed, death metal is more than just an old school regurgitation of past themes and riffage. For their debut full-length, the band couldn’t have chosen a better title. Abysmal Thresholds is about as abysmal as death metal can get as the ten songs here are drenched in swampy, crusty atmosphere culled from Stygian depths.

There’s very little ebb and flow throughout the album. Sure there are peaks and valleys in terms of ferocity, but for the most part the music here flows ceaselessly, oozing from festering, ruptured pustules as gaseous putridity fills the air. Abysmal Thresholds is heavy and full and dripping with malevolence. “Of Desolation” delivers a massive wall of churning death as rumbling drums carry waves of sick, swarming riffs and distant, feral guttural vocals. If the rest of the album is as thick and as bestial as this first proper song (“Invocation” is an intro/instrumental) then we’re in for one hell of a ride.

And, yep, “Trepanation” delivers the same swelling avalanche of tumbling corpses and decomposing limbs, viscera flying haphazardly through the air, directed only by the maniacal blasts of drummer Jussi-Pekka Manner. Guitarists Jyri Lustig and Matti Mäkelä provide some seriously blackened riffage as more low-end rumble comes courtesy bassist Mikko Pöllä. And again, Niko Matilainen vocal delivery is netherworldly — guttural and just damn evil. The song is packed with aggression and contempt, but the guys are sure to keep things eventful with touches of symphonics and tempo shifts.

If I were to have a single complaint about Abysmal Thresholds it’s that the music can often blend together in a single wall of destruction, vocals fading into guitars as rumbling bass swallows everything whole. I think that and then “Sovereign” erupts at its 1:30 mark with swirling, blackened mayhem and vitriol. And then I forget what I was thinking about. It’s the same with the rest of the album. As soon as I get tired of the singular wall of sound, tracks like the uber sludgy “Necrosophic Channeling,” the rollicking, twitchy “Apotheosis,” and the surprising groove of “Transcend Beyond Humanity” come along and kick me in the side of the skull.

If you like your metal dripping, oozing with a dank air of decomposition with little in the way of variation then Corpsessed’s Abysmal Threshold is the shit you need to be force feeding your ear holes. This shit is thick, vicious and just plain awesome.