DISMA

These days a reference to INCANTATION's early lordliness is almost insufficient in describing a style of old school death metal that is dank, dark, dirty, and doomed since bands like DEAD CONGREGATION, ENCOFFINATION, and NECROVATION — are you picking up on the whole "tion" theme here? — have not only released albums mining the style in one form or another, but have done so exceedingly well, if not better. Enter DISMA a band with members that aren't just mimicking it, but who helped create it. Featuring veterans of the INCANTATION — including King of the Cavernous Craig Pillard on vocals — and FUNEBRARUM wars, DISMA walks it like it talks it on "Towards the Megalith".

How difficult is the death metal of "Towards the Megalith" to describe? It's not. If you read the first paragraph, then you basically already know. The part in said paragraph to which much attention should be paid is "done so exceedingly well", and to some extent maybe the thing about the INCANTATION and even FUNEBRARUM - skilled purveyors of the style in their own right — connection. The mud is deep, the distortion is loud, the doom is dread-drenched and the death is quick and gnarly. Better yet, all of it comes wrapped in eight individual packages of carefully composed songs that never drag and always chill to the bone. That's a hell of a lot easier said than done in this genre, at least if albums of this sort have any chancing of hauling fence-sitters over to the overgrown, trash-strewn side of the fence.

With not a bad apple to be found in the batch ("rotten" yes, "bad" no),"Towards the Megalith" is demonstrative of a doomy-death metal album where the dirge and up-tempo ports are located in all the right places and the transitions are not only seamless, but also tension-built. Take the final section of the title track for example. Remember that ominously anticipatory Dave Lombardo (SLAYER) beat just before the wicked riff to "Raining Blood" is unleashed? Crank up the bass distortion and guitar feedback, alter/slow the drum part, and you end up with something like the breakdown that hits around the five-minute mark of the title track. Or just listen to how well the pieces of "Spectral Domination" have been put together. Keeping the track lengths in the four to seven minute range (most are right around six) doesn't hurt either. So you're a fan of the style? Then there is no reason on this toilet earth why you shouldn't purchase DISMA's "Towards the Megalith". It's the genuine article, if you will; the real deal, as it were.