Review Azath "Through a Warren of Shadow"

At this point, I would like to introduce the 2020 debut album by Azath, a US-Canadian collaboration, which in my opinion did not receive enough attention. The album was released by Pulverised Records, which is already a certain seal of quality. The band, which has been around since 2018 and released a demo before the album came out, as well as a 7" with the Americans from Nucleus in 2023 as their last sign of life, plays fast, mangy death metal, somewhere between old school heroes like Incantation or Dead Congregation, or, for that matter, like playing an Autopsy LP at 45 rpm. That said, the consistently high tempo and rawness often remind me of Brazilian bands like Krisiun, Rebaelliun, and especially Abhorrence (not to be confused with the Finnish band of the same name, which also had later Amorphis members in its ranks and can be considered a kind of precursor to the Finnish metal stars), who created a classic in 2000 with “Evoking the Abomination.” Occasionally, however, Azath also sprinkles in rare doom passages, such as in the album's title track or in "Shifting Forms". Overall, the album offers no “hits,” and there is indeed a danger, as criticized in some reviews, that much of it will sound uniform when listened to casually. However, the album makes up for this with its fantastic, raw underground death metal, so if you're into fast but not overly technical death metal, you should definitely give this a listen! At the end of 2024, the band announced on their Facebook account that they were recording a new album. Let's hope it will be released soon!