Nothingness – Godslaughter (Candid Occult Death Metal)

 

Need some power for the day? Or perhaps the week? Need it to come (as a friend of mine said) with some muddiness, yet while retaining enough clarity that the main chunk of the sound is never hidden? Or as the artwork above suggests, want to splatter your face with sound? Now that I’ve honored both honesty and my friend’s assessment, let’s get into the Deaf Sparrow gobbletygook to really understand (at least partially), what Minnesota’s Nothingness is bringing to the masses.

   

Let’s start with calling their name contradictory. Though they had some stumbles in earlier work, moments of ambiguity and approaches that sounded experimental for the sake of it, with their latest full-length, Godslaughter, they’re removed the allusion and swapped it for pure exposition. No more messing around, goddamn it, this is death metal and they’re rather candid about it. Once the opener, “Incinerated Immediately,” begins, it’s clear these guys have now taken the forthright approach. Not only is the title immediate, but their usage of riffing is at face value within brief moments. Nothingness have an excellent ability to pull clever hooks, and surprising genre mixes, from the nearly-raw distortion of the mix, making this latest release a true step in the right direction, and evidently honest. No stink of attention-seeking or unnecessary unpredictability this time around, these guys demand attention by their mere existence from here on out.

 

Nothingness Official Instagram

Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls

Nothingness – Godslaughter
Everlasting Spew Records
Cover Art: Adam Yates
4.3 / 5