Originally written by Jordan Campbell
Few things are more satisfying than discovering a death metal record that ticks all the right boxes, yet still feels oh-so-fresh. An album that scratches that perpetual itch for skull-liquifying devastation, but also triggers an owl-necked “Where the fuck did this come from?”
In this case? Japan, via Willowtip Records. An intriguing combo, to say the least. Willowtip has been resurgent of late, and Japanese bands have a long history of battering the establishment from cunning angles. Implicit Obedience, Desecravity’s debut, deals in wholesale domination; it’s a full-on assault that bounces around the ropes like a weirded-out Hate Eternal trading blows with a warp-speed Immolation. And the coolest part? These dudes can fucking hang.
Desecravity display an intelligence that belies their single-mindedness; their tempo changes are insanely fluid, allowing Implicit Obedience to maintain an electric unpredictability throughout a perfectly-packaged thirty-two minute running time. Blastbeats are abundant but never suffocate, lending a maniacal sense of velocity to the too-fast-to-headbang-so-I’ll-just-vibrate burner “Hades.” (Amongst others. There’s not a lot of respite to be found here.) Contrast this flamethrower-in-a-wind-tunnel insanity with the ball-crushing groove of “Demonize the Old Enemy,” and you’ve got a band that possesses a knack for knowing exactly when and fucking how to pop vertebrae like bacne.
Still, the sickest thing about this record isn’t the colossal Erik Rutan production or Yujiro Suzuki’s dead-ass bellowing. It’s the fact that Implicit Obedience pisses on conventional brutality and actually gets better as it goes on. The wild punishment of “The Collapse of Religion,” the spine-peeling spirals of “Extinction With Hatred,” and the somber machinegunning of “Dark Dimension” close the album violently. Desecravity takes elements of practically everything that rules about death metal right now, twists them beyond human comprehension, and delivers them with horrifying and lethal precision. It’s complete and utter death metal madness.
Take note, be warned…insert your hype-ass clichés here. Desecravity is the real fuckin’ deal. Lock in and destroy.
