2024 Sentient Ruin Laboratories / 7”
On this split we get one 6-minute track each from Aberration
of Minneapolis and Diabolic Oath from Portland. It’s a nice split, suitably
underground-looking, with cool logos and nice gray and black art. Dismembered
skeletons hanging from chains are always rad. Each band uses the word “divinations”
in their track title, with “Divinations of Flesh” from Aberration and the
mighty “Divinations of Wrath” from Diabolic Oath.
Aberration gives us a track of solid death metal, very much
in the vein of Incantation and doomier Autopsy perhaps, but with a haunting
sound, for some reason reminding me of Von, of all bands. I have no idea why
that is, but it does in fact remind me of the Satanic Blood demo. It’s not nearly
as repetitious as that, but it might because of the cave-like recording (and
that is not an insult – it gives the song its own personality). It’s more
intricately played than that, of course. While good, it didn’t reach out and
strangle me and I felt it could be shorter, but doom-influenced death metal
tends to longer compositions, of course. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more
from Aberration to see if they step up their attack, because I’m definitely
going to pay attention to them, but I have to hear more to decide for sure if I’m
a true fan.
Diabolic Oath gives us a real treat on the B side, and they
have a bit more of a black/death inclination, especially in the way the drums
come across. This is easily my favorite of the two tracks on this split. Parts
of it made me wish I still had hair to windmill! Possibly due to the drum sound
or the reverb on the vocals, it reminded me a little bit of Demolition’s
portion of the Heralds of Oblivion compilation from 1993 (hunt that sumbitch
down if you can, it’s worth it!). Early to mid-period Necrophobic also came to
mind during some of the more black metal-styled riffs. Stylistically, of course
it’s different than those two bands, with almost a war metal vibe in certain
parts of the song where the snare pounds away and the vocals echo malevolently,
but the general feel is there. The Gorguts-like (or even Blasphemy-like) grunt
with reverb right around the 3 minute mark made me a fan immediately. Badass
creative choice there, and it built the intensity of the riff to follow
perfectly. I just can’t say enough positive things about this track – it’s a good
song. It made me a fan, so I’ll be actively trying to track down their other
material for sure.
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