Italian four-piece POSTHUMAN ABOMINATION began as a side-project, but it is now being fully realized in their first full-length release, "Transcending Embodiment". They released a demo, "Crafting Life" in 2017; while only containing two songs, it caught the attention of Comatose Music, the band's current label. As a fan of VOMIT THE SOUL (Max Santarelli's former baby), I'm psyched to dig into this album, and I already have some obscenely high expectations for this riffage.

The title track goes right into the slammy riffs and guttural vocals. The riffs are a nice blend of technicality and slamming brutal deliciousness. Some unexpected pinch harmonics take over the riff going into the third minute. The drum mix is really top-notch; the cymbals sit right on top of the mix, the kick is clicky but with some body, and the snare has a fantastic crack to it. The drumming itself is super tight, with spot-on blazing double kicks, blast beats, and cymbalwork that keeps it interesting, particularly right before the drop at 3:27 that makes some great use of the splash. There are few things more exciting than those two foreboding hits on the china - it lets you know some prime brutality is coming, and that's exactly what you get at 3:40. Judging from the first song, the band's sound is veering towards technical brutal death metal; while nothing particularly innovative is going on, they're taking the best of aspects of modern death metal and honing it into this great, all-encompassing, face-smashing sound. "Systematic Ecophagy" continues this pattern of just relentless hard-hitting riff after hard-hitting riff, and there's more of a groove among the techy, slammy goodness.

One thing I appreciate about this album is this common theme that is presented through the album art, song titles, and samples - a sort of technological apocalypse. And goddamnit do these guys know how to write a riff. "Cyberbrain Drain" is three minutes of pure, primal, face-melting aggression. The opening of "Autogenetic" could easily be a VOMIT THE SOUL section, with that super distinct and easily identifiable utilization of pinch harmonics, and I'm living for it. This is another hard-hitter, full of these massive riffs that have been purveying the entire album so far.

"Apocatastasis" exhibits the techier aspect of the band, and it's a nice change-up from the pure slamming riffage that has been present throughout each song so far. The presence of the tech doesn't equate the absence of the brutal - this song is full of this relentless, heavy energy. The way this song builds into the very last riff had me holding my breath for half the song. After the first half of the album, I feel like I need to take a breather: they pack so much brutal, interminable energy into every single track. The songs really build and progress in a way that a lot of death metal is lacking.

The second half of the album is much like the first - face-melting brutality interspersed with more technical riffs, these guttural, disgusting (in a completely positive way) vocals, well-structured songs, and technological-sounding samples to pull it all together. "Simulacra-Simulation" is much more on the tech-death side of things than a lot of the other songs, and it still holds that same boundless energy. "Planned Obsolescence" brings back those distinct pinch harmonics that hint at the VOMIT THE SOUL connections. This is also the only song where samples are present in more than just the intro; it's unexpected, and I love when a band can surprise me.

"Posthuman", the final track on the album, really brings back that groove that you can catch throughout the album. The song also seems to use the same source of sampling as the last song, and it continues the trend of having the sample placed throughout the song. To be honest, I've become a bit disenchanted with samples in death metal, but at this point I have to nitpick for things I don't love about this album. This track is also much lighter than the rest of the songs; it has a much more casual feel, and I wish they had ended the album the way they began it - with that endless, brutal, primal energy that was present for the entire album.

I see this album being one of the best releases of the year; as a first album, it's mind-blowing. I can't wait to see the band just take off after the album is officially released; it's one of the best brutal death metal releases I've heard in quite a while. If you're into any sort of brutal death metal or slam, this one is a must!