ILLUSIVE KEY is an International Black Metal band formed very recently, and that is all the information I was able to gather about the band. "Consume Us" is their debut release, and it has four songs. "Disseverence" is first. It eases in slowly, with solemn tones, and the fog of early morning, before exploding into a deep, dark aggressiveness, led by a horrid vocal scream. The production is quite muted…a common feature in the genre. It keeps the songs as dark as possible. It is so chaotic, you can rarely catch your bearings when listening to it. Harrowing tones come at you with the speed of light. The chaos eventually lessens a little, but the frightening landscape is no less intense.

"Ghosts" is equally as aggressive, and it opens like an expansive cave into the deep parts of the earth. When you dig where you shouldn't, you never know what you might encounter. The intensity of the sound is off the charts, and rises above the maximum, and stays at that pace throughout the song. "Yearning" finally hears the intensity slow to dark, clean guitar passages. The feeling is still quite hopeless, but the aggression is gone, for now. It swells up slowly, but doesn't yet release. Instead, a slow, crunchy guitar riff carries it forward, with the mids turned all the way down. The harsh vocals are demonstrative…it's as if every word is a commandment for the dead.

The title track is the final offering, and if you thought the band was going to offer anything less intense, you were sorely mistaken. The aggression and intensity are both as strong as ever, and add in some darkness and fright, and you have a recipe for the abyss itself. Overall, this album was at raging as it was contentious, with both parts shooting high above the horizon and into the canopy. Like a horribly torture sequence, they never let your pain subside even a bit, or slide up and down. Instead, the continued to twist the hot steel bolts further and further into your flesh.