Adversarial – Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism
Well, this band has already started off on their path of adversariness with an album title that’s probably going to break our system coding. First for its length, and if that doesn’t do it, then for its meaning. Nihilism, the rejection of principles, especially moral principles or those stemming from religion, the rejection of love, of meaning, and everything if you have the energy for it. The knife of that nihilism, black with years of old blood, drives deep into the endless nothing of your existence to bring you to the only logical conclusion for one so steeped in pointless definitions, death. This knife slashes first here, then there, cutting obtusely through the drivel of modern death metal, the corpse art, the sticky logos, the misogyny coming from men scarcely four feet in height, the beer drinking, gut wielding, beardos of new. It slices through all, leaving only empty shells, or rather revealing the shells as they already were. This album is about adversity, confronting all of those tiresome ideas and using old style as a weapon to destroy and create the future of metal like slash and burn through a forest seeded with thorns.
Adversarial come from Canada, and they’ve been doing this adversity thing now for about eight years with a sick demo, some splits, an EP, and one other full-length next to this one here that we’re reviewing, which was also released by Dark Descent Records. So something should tell you it’s worth it, labels of their size usually don’t stick around with the same band unless they have reason to, and all of those reasons are made infinitely clear in Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism.
Very rarely do we allow ourselves to become this devoured. Adversarial have outdone themselves this time around, to the extent they might want to retire. We mean that in every positive connotation possible, because it’s going to be a hell of a lot of work to take this further. Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism is perfection in modern death metal. In fact, let’s just call it Adversarial metal because they’ve basically replaced the genre. The general production quality echoes with cavernous, archaic power filled with riffs like a sacrificial cave of skulls covering a eon or so. For metal of this type to succeed, it needs one thing, primarily, that being disgustingly awful sick good riffs. Make sure the bass bolsters that filth, make sure the drums roll like an avalanche, and please, oh please do something different with those vocals! When you hear vocal delivery that sounds like someone vomiting a collection of stabbing weapons from their stomach, you’re good to go. Not that traditional, death metal “I am a man hear me roar without understanding the lyrics” growling, but the voice of someone who sounds dejected and depraved, that’s what we need. You’ve got that here, making it the total package for the modern death metal fanatic. Forget all that other stuff, waste of time. Easily one of the best metal releases we’ve heard in this past year, and one of the few that is deserving of a perfect.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Adversarial: Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism
Dark Descent Records
5 / 5
