Desecration and Enchantment

I don't know if this band has ever come across my desk and I missed them, but after hearing this EP, I'll have to check out their other stuff. This is two tracks only, though the cassette version will have an exclusive track that won't be released digitally. Even with two tracks, Desecration and Enchantment clocks in at over 15 minutes. I wouldn't go as far as calling this atmospheric, but there are some atmospheric moments to be found here, something not quite as common in death metal as it is in black metal. The songs are heavy and slow to mid-paced, with some occasional faster passages that will rock your socks off with the fast and air-guitar-inducing riffage and some thunderous drumming. There's a dark, creepy vibe throughout, even on the fast passages, but it's when things get slow and acoustic that things get kind of chilling and suspenseful, only to continue in a torturous onslaught of agonizing screams and heavy music; the nearly 9-minute "Disintegration of the Soul" feels quite epic as a result and feels even longer than that, but in a good way. In the saturated genre that is death metal, it's easy to find bands that do it right, but not so much to find bands that do something different without sounding gimmicky or incorporating unfitting genres; Maul are successful at that.