Originally written by Sasha Horn
I guess what you have to ask yourself is “Do I like my death metal with hidden agendas?” Are you looking for a light at the end of the tunnel? Are you desperately seeking room to breathe? Or are you waiting for an album to come along and do to you what Death Metal originally intended to do to you, which is kill you. This stuff is supposed to get us dead. No exit romance. No eulogy. Nothing to remember you by. Just burial. Just wood boxes and cheap dirt. No smiles for miles and miles. Hour Of Penance do this. They do this to me, and I’m betting that they can do this to you. I’ll put your life on it.
I’ll start by admitting, embarrassingly, that I had HoP pegged for Polish. Can you blame me? For those of you that have already experienced the ill pleasures of The Vile Conception, is it not such a far-fetched wrong guess? I learned recently that they’re from Italy. So yeah, I’m a late-comer. And if I could do it all over again, I’d listen to their two-thousand-sixer Pageantry For Martyrs back when it was a new release, and I’d still come late to the party. That was DM-by-the-numbers mixed for snare drum and vocal to the point of annoyance, and was not nearly as impressive a performance. But in the last two years HoP must have landed a formaldehyde endorsement deal or somethin’ ‘cuz this shit right here is freebased, son. I can now comfortably make an addition to my “what-do-I-listen-to-now-that-Apostasy-didn’t-do-it-for-me” stack along with Azarath’s Diabolic Impious Evil (with Behemoth’s Inferno throwing sticks no less) and Crionics’ Neuthrone. Simply, The Vile Conception is categorically crushing. It’s a blast-beat extravaganza. It’s a double-bass parade. It is riffs like razors all up in your jugular. But thankfully it is not a circle-jerk. It is not scatterbrained. It’s a mono-idealistic meltdown with Chernobyl-like consequences. It is not guitar spaghetti like say, Braindrill, and they are not quite the exhibitionists that fellow label-mates Decrepit Birth are, but it is still firmly rooted in the modern stamina championship that is the Unique Leader record label. This whole body of work is on point and executed with professionalism. The song structures themselves do not break any barriers; on paper, the equation looks an awful lot like that of Behemoth’s Demigod. An awful lot. But to heaven with prototypes! This is Rome by way of Poland. Let us rejoice in this cancerous mix. The end result, the one that you’ll remember, is when they truly identify themselves during tracks like “Absence Of Truth” where they revel in dissonance and blasts, past the point of ridiculousness and straight down into endarkenment. The highlight within the highlight is the stretched out “relaxed” drumming and bent note breakdown at one minute and thirty seconds in. Better inhale. That’s the only breathing room you’ll get in all of Conception aside from a couple of well orchestrated cinematic segues. In production-speak, the album is mixed exactly the way it should be: Trigger the fuck out of the drums. Up the cymbal levels to match. Vocals should make the listener feel hot breath coming from the speakers. When the guitars hit their lowest, make it feel thick like you’re up to your knees in it. And to out revile the obnoxious, drop some bass bombs in there at pivot points as a reminder. You really don’t need a play-by-play with this one beyond that snippet sample. You’ve heard, and I’ve heard, this particular style in the multitude, but it always just makes me want more. This is that. I can’t get enough of this shit. If blast-beats comprised of sampled snares and clickety kicks are soothing to your soul like they are mine (dead serious), then I’m telling you to drop the dough on this drug.
I wouldn’t be a good dealer if I didn’t let you get that first hit for free. Don’t worry about it. You’re gonna be alright. You can quit whenever you want.
