Antediluvian - Through The Cervix Of Hawwah

Finals are coming to an end, meaning I can finally update on a regular basis soon! Get excited. I'll be updating two-three times a day to make up for the shit I missed. Meanwhile enjoy one of 2011's best.

Unpredictable and cavernous, alien but all-too-familiar, Antediluvian stirred up the bowels of creation and shit primordial soup all over my face with this glorious 2011 release, Through The Cervix Of Hawwah. The murkiness of this release isn't a testament to Incantation as it seems to be for a lot of death metal in 2011, and instead it builds an atmosphere described only by the words "archaic" and "fucking awesome."

After Antediluvian's barely mediocre 2010 release Watchers' Reign I was less than thrilled to sit through another forgettable death metal album. Through The Cervix Of Hawwah is Antediluvian doing a full 180, exploring tasteful tempo changes, fun time signatures, and a degree of dark brutality that is unmatched by anyone that isn't fellow Canadians Mitochondrion. As opposed to the completely ritualistic, cult-like feel of their rivals' music, Antediluvian's atmosphere is significantly less droning and evil, and more bizarre and amorphous. Vague descriptions aside, this stuff is killer. "Intuitus Mortuus" is the very meaning of abyssal and that riff at around ~30 seconds gets me every time. Songs like "Gomorrah Entity (Perversion Reborn)" features dissonances that all coalesce into a sonic maelstrom that pulls you down into the centre of the earth. This isn't the only song with those traits either, as pretty much every track on Through The Cervix Of Hawwah shares this atmosphere, making it a coherent and enjoyable record from start to finish.

As with most bands of this style, there's a lot of black metal influence in the drumming, and ironically it's also where most of the brutality comes from with the winding blastbeats and fills. Running at a mere 36:16, Through The Cervix Of Hawwah is the perfect length for this intense black/death metal, and it keeps the album from feeling exhausting. The high-gain guitar and the organic feel of the production really pounds home that "Abyss Of Organic Matter" feel (dohoho). Easily one of the best releases of 2011, you'd have to be a degenerate to not pick this up.

9.0 out of 10


Tracklisting:

1.	Rephaim Sceptre...
2.	...Through the Cervix of Hawaah
3.	Intuitus Mortuus
4.	Scions of Ha Nachash (Spectre of the Burning Valley)
5.	From Seraphic Embrace
6.	Luminous Harvest
7.	Turquoise Infidel
8.	Gomorrah Entity (Perversion Reborn)
9.	Erect Reflection (Abyss of Organic Matter)