Review Summary: The atmosphere is akin to a flesh-stripping onslaught.
Take a second and envision what Satan sounds like in pop culture. Not “the devil,” who is usually portrayed by Pacino or Nicholson or something and always seems more concerned with being cunning and clever and scoring hot chicks than punishing fallen souls for eternity. No, we’re talking about the “Holy Diver” cover, the voice of Dave Grohl in “The Pick of Destiny,” Beelzebub, the grotesque beast lord of hell. That voice is impossibly guttural, pants-sh*ttingly foreboding, dare we say ...demonic. Now, imagine Satan just performed cunnilingus on a Goddamn exploding Panzer tank with the force of a starving Cerberus at a human flesh buffet. That’s kind of what the vocals on "The Absurd Horror" sound like. Between his penchant for guttural roars of woe and screeching rasps of terror that are surely the envy of corpse-painting Norwegians everywhere, I’ll be seriously damn impressed if vocalist Graham Cwinn has a throat left by the time he's 35.
Despite the vocal characterizations, ...From the Deep are not disciples of The Morning Star. They are a 5 piece Death/Groove/Black metal hybrid from Ottawa that ponder the meta-physical instead of the charcoal of hell. Although we have to take their word for it, because it’s a Herculean task to understand a word roared by Cwinn, the lyrics are about “universal consciousness, our own insignificance and the exhaustion of modern life.” The cover at first glance looks like the drill to Hell, but it’s actually an apparatus extracting people from the earth, causing them to explode into trees in what appears to be a ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust philosophical take, only way more metal. As is apparent from first listen, …From the Deep employ a certain sophistication, a high level of intelligence amongst the gnashing, fighting, gloriously grotesque atmosphere of their music.
More than anything, “The Absurd Horror” is a celebration of extreme metal. Although there are elements of accessibility, like the gorgeous melodic intros to “The Triumph of Sisyphus” and “Labyrinth (of melting thoughts)”, which also has an excellent yet brief “all-arms-to-shred” classic metal solo toward the beginning, the majority of …From the Deep’s debut EP is a pummeling assault of odd time signatures, tremolo picking, sudden tempo changes, and blast beats of truth. The majority of the cuts alternate between death/black metal influences, often interchanging on a dime, effortlessly segued by a ferocious yet precise rhythm section. The best example is highlight “We Will All Be Trees,” which wastes no time in charging out of the gate in death influenced glory, inexplicably slides into a gentle acoustic number, and explodes into a tremendously intense black metal induced outro. Like all great metal regardless of sub-genre it’s simultaneously exhausting, exhilarating, and damn relentless.
That passion is perhaps the best characterization for what …From the Deep are about. Aside from the rare quiet and contemplative moments strategically placed to stave off exhaustion from the insatiable double bass/riffing/grooves/blasts/squeals of might, the overall atmosphere is akin to a flesh-stripping onslaught. Far from accessible, they are the kind of band that opens for Kreator and Firewind (which they have done), and scars any unseasoned metal fan for life. If we combined the influence of 90s era Florida and Norway and somehow dropped it into Canada, this is the result. Whether their brand of extreme metal is your thing or not, it is clear that …From the Deep have the chops and drive to deserve notice.
