Polish death metallers Dira Mortis's third album is like a vicious breath and grave miasma. This hits listener's face like rotting piece of flesh. The echo is not from a tomb anymore, it's from a fucking vast burial cavern. It is so voluminous, that during faster parts the sound gets muddy as hell. When the echoing is done right, it adds so much atmosphere, and I often cherish it, but in my opinion, here they went a tad too far with this much reverb going on.

The music is rather simplistic, foul death metal, definitely North American style. The guitars are of ugly and ominous riffs, often very fast, and then there are heavy power chords, plus insane solo bursts (of which at least some feel composed). Some lead guitar work conjures extraordinary and otherworldly melodies, that stick out like cathedral spires among tombstones (sounding like originating from the British Isles, not Poland). The guitar tone is stodgy and rusty at the same time. The bass can be heard booming in low frequencies. Together, the stringed instruments create a totally oppressive, but also burdensome, sound.

The drums (especially the snare) are rumbling, furthering the haze of the production. The tempos fluctuate between blasting speeds and slow, doomy crawl. Sometimes the band change pace by decelerating or accelerating, or then they throw a total curve ball with another part, that carries a different beat. Sometimes the compositional solutions work marvelously, but there are a hefty bunch of missteps, too. That could be caused by the production job, simple obscuring what should be going to a listener. And not only that, as sometimes the guitar is so low on volume it's ridiculous. The good thing about the production is that it is utterly organic-sounding affair.

Thinking about the song lengths, the band, in my opinion, went on for too way long forays without rewards. The band could have utilized phantasmal soundscapes they used as intro and outro in them proper songs, as they are really fine atmospheric-wise and would have brought in fresh air and time for taking it all in. Now it is rather suffocating.

The vocals are one of the highlight traits, because they are varying: all way disgusting, there's hoarse, echoing growl as a main voice, but some shrieky ones as well, plus different screams, grunts and whatnot. A big portion of the lyrics lash political and religious power structures, which of course isn't rare at all for Polish (death) metal bands.The graphical expression is fitting. Especially the gloomy cover artwork utterly fits the vibes.

'Ancient Breath of Forgotten Misanthropy' can be recommended to the fans of Cianide, Encoffination and even Immolation to try out. I love eerie death metal, but sadly the overtly loud and effected production kind of ruined it for me, and the long compositions didn't really help, this time around.

Rating: 6 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/13/2023 21:15