Brutal death metal band Human Nihility hail from Luhansk, Ukraine. They formed in 2014 and the debut EP 'Last Stage of Abuse' followed already during the next year. If you're looking for groovy yet hard-hitting brutality, look no further!

While creating this debut, I believe Human Nihility were highly influenced by US act Dying Fetus (duh, there's a fucking DF cover here!), who had reaped blood-thirsty crowds for more than two decades before these Ukrainians, but only put out two albums during their last 10 years of activity. So, this is a great comfort bandage for Fetus followers. Why? Because this is well done, not just a hasty abortion for Fetus fans.

Five songs in under 18 minutes; that's under 4 minutes per song. The band offer highly rhythmic, and often groovy style pounding. They show various beats and riffs on each of the songs, fluidly mutating more or less during their duration. The music is on the move all the time. While there are lots of tempo changes, it never requires any higher knowledge of mathematics. Another band that comes to my mind is Misery Index, yet Human Nihility do not possess similarly strong hardcore side even though they have a slight amount of it in.

There are slower hacking riffs and fast slashing strings-work, that are both very effective and brutal, thanks to suitable guitar tones (crunchy yet warm). There's also squeals and discordant notes as expected in brutal death metal. The beats can be tight as hell, or more airy and grooving, and there's abundance of them with crispy drum sounds. The fat-sounding bass guitar is stamping nicely in the mix. The vocals are growling on both higher and lower levels, and there's also this crispy throat voice. Generally, the band operate in rather concise area, but this still contains enough variety; just don't except them throwing in anything outlandish beyond what is brutal death metal. However, it's pretty damn catchy.

Human Nihility showed right from the start that they weren't here to clown around. It's not a surprise, that the last time we got new music from them was in 2020, so let's hope that the warring will soon be history.

Rating: 8- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/11/2023 19:24