Ischemic – Condemned To The Breaking Wheel Review

Toronto’s Ischemic take a rather interesting approach to assembling their doom/death metal that helps give it a refreshing, but thankfully never forced, level of diversity. Condemned to the Breaking Wheel is their third full length, and each of its four songs provides a slight twist on their OSDM foundation that, when combined with the album’s brief 30-minute runtime, makes it a rather brisk and satisfying spin for fans of all things slow and very hefty.

Release date: April 5, 2024. Label: Independent.
Hitting on the foundation is obviously important, and Ischemic proves more than capable at emulating the doomier side of OSDM with obvious nods to greats like Incantation with their cavemanish, heavy-and-mean-above-all-else riffs and lumbering rhythms. Some touches of black metal in the form of blasts and screeches and the occasional sludge-out-trudge-out part complete the basics of a sound that is both extremely indebted to the past and has a lot of comps in the Here ‘n Now.

But it’s the aforementioned touches of diversity where Ischemic stylizes up that foundation in fun and different ways. For example, the opening title track uses the Very Dark Descent form of death metal for much of its nine-plus minutes, relying on Isa Tazbir’s charismatic presence and range on the mic (deep growls to big screams) and the slightest touch of Peaceville Three sadness to carry the tune along. But it’s the extra doomy, almost Yob-influenced parts that make it interesting. As more space is introduced, Tazbir takes on even more of a haggard presence, and a death/sludge finish provides resolution, if not exactly a sense of peace.

Contrast this with the approaches of the next two songs. “Tomb Fog” borders on funeral doom for much of its duration, using atmospheric tremolo lines and a really massive sense of space to create something that feels, well, quite massive, while injections of Autopsy (the sassy trill riffs) helps break up the sense of inevitable doom. “Rust and Bones” then somewhat flips this approach, keeping some of the atmospheric elements but dropping anything funereal and instead emphasizing the preposterous thump of it all.

If “Rust and Bones” is the most standardly doom/death, closer “Abandon” is the biggest surprise. Beginning with some My Dying Bride-like sorrowful harmonies, the song quickly drops much of the death side of their sound in favor of a softly blackened, Agallochian sound ‒ complete with touches of sea shanty rhythms ‒ that somehow still works perfectly with the doomy bombast. A higher vocal range from Tazbir and great drumming performance from Mrudul Kamble are both key in making this detour work, so when the more “ordinary” doom/death riffing returns the transition sounds seamless.

Ischemic’s ability to naturally weave these sounds together alleviates any impressions that they’re somewhat touring across multiple styles of Slow Heavy Metal (which would be a lazy take anyway). Condemned to the Breaking Wheel probably isn’t going to blow your mind in terms of originality or outright thrills, but it’s a slickly assembled and efficient set of slow stuff that provides escapist expanse as often as it wallops hard.

Posted by Zach Duvall

Last Rites Co-Owner; Senior Editor; Obnoxious overuser of baseball metaphors.

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