WORMHOLE is a Technical Brutal Death Metal band originating from Baltimore, Maryland. This their second release following the 2016 full-length album, Genesis, also released on Lacerated Enemy Records. These guys have described themselves and their sound as Slamming Brutal Death Metal, so prep yourself. These had a busy 2019 touring doing the Devastation On The Nation Tour IV with ABORTED, PSYCROPTIC, INGESTED, DISENTOMB, ARKAIK, VENOM PRISON & SIGNS OF THE SWARM. What will this year be like following this release?

"The Weakest Among Us" does not have an ease-into approach, which isn't a bad thing, it just gets into the song straight away. The build-up instrumentally is decent, it is thick and easy to follow, more of a Sludge or Doom-style approach, but it works. The song sets a decent pace as far as melodies go, nothing too heavy to headbang to, with a few little solos thrown in, it adds a depth to the instrumental harmonies. Vocal harmonies, there are none. The vocals are just short outbursts of noise than cannot be understood and could have been left out of the song and the song would have been appreciated more. "rA9/myth" has a sample start from Spongebob Squarepants, not exactly, what you'd expect from a Technical Brutal Death Metal band, but those words are going to be the only ones that you can hear as the vocals are once again just noise. A song as short as this one, so early into an album is often used as either a fast-paced, frenzied song to kick the album into gear, or it is an instrumental melody to build into the next song. This song is neither. It has no real pace, less than on "The Weakest Among Us". If you took out the vocals it would have worked ok-ish as an instrumental, but I am starting to think that I will be adding that point to many of these songs.

"D-S3" does pick up the pace more, which is a good thing for the album. The technical approach of a Technical Brutal Death Metal band is often hard to distinguish, but sometimes you just have to work out what the sound could be like and think, you can hear the melodies building at times, the pace dies down to something you would have heard BLACK TONGUE do. The song does not change too much; rather it slows down and does allow us to enjoy the melodies from the instrumental aspect. The vocals are very easy to drown out and just appreciate the song as in the final 90 seconds it does have some brilliant harmonic melodies on display. "Wave Quake Generator Plasma Artillery Cannon" does not carry on from where "D-S3" left off, which is a shame. This song does start like most of the others, in the way of it has the vocals that cannot be understood and a generic melody running, the melody does start to flourish more throughout the song, but the vocals let it down. This one does not go anywhere, but you may not be expecting it to. They may have missed a trick here by not having more expressive and experimental sounds like the previous song did

"The Gas System" does continue the same pace and approach that this album has. Vocals, well you can guess where this is going, do not add much to the song at all, which is a shame because the melodies laid down from the band are pretty solid. The song does end in a weird Djent sounding sample, which also does not do the song justice. This one has some decent melodies, even if they are not allowing much progression. "Ultrafrigid" starts solid. It has a good beat and tempo from the off, the only issue is that it dies down very quickly. The melodies do pick back up slightly midway through and sound more experimental, a few sounds familiar with fans of RINGS OF SATURN, but the vocals do not support the overall sound. The song dies down in tempo toward the end again; it would be nice to have one song go all out as a finish

"Quad MB" starts like the vast majority of songs on here. It starts fast and then slows down, which has worn thin at this point. Although the drumbeat to start is awesome, I just wanted it to go throughout the song, instead of building up the tempo and then being killed off. At this point in the album, the melodies become little more than background music, nothing to spark real interest, it is more of the same that the album has produced. "Ingswarm" is the final song will we hear a frenzied end or just a song that slowly fades away? The start is promising; it had a good beat on the drums, pulling back to allow the buildup on guitars, and then kicking off together. Rather reminds me of CATTLE DECAPITATION. Unfortunately, the tempo does seem to be dying away, it returns in spurts, but it is not enough to make the song feel much better, and then goes the slow fade out. Poo.

This is not a stereotypical TBDM album, this is slower than you may be used to, which does allow you to appreciate the album sound in a different way, but for me, it is let down by the lack of experimental sounds, progression in songs and the overall vocals. This album would have been completely different with 2 or 3 frenzied melodies to stir shit up, because of this, the sound does become too similar after a while.