ACATHEXIS is a multi-national Black Metal project formed in 2016. Its members are from Argentina, Belgium, and the United States. "Acathexis" is the band's debut release, and contains four lengthy tracks. "Immurement" leads off the album. It opens with clean guitars and tones of desolation. When that wall of sound hits you, you know you are listening to Black Metal. The guitars and bass hold a steady riff, while the drums pound away at thunderous speeds, and the vocals are mostly vile screams. Following the half-way mark it slows down to a discernable rhythm and those guitars build a harrowing sound. Then, the chaos returns.

"Life Only Festers" opens with clean guitars that lead to distorted ones. The vocals are multi-dimensional here...sometimes vile low utterances while at others high pitched screams. It's an intense slab of music from start to finish, pausing only briefly for a guitar-only passage at around the ¾ mark. "Veins Hollowed" is another track that opens with doleful clean guitars and an easy entrance. A little melody line is established, as harsh vocals come in gently, as whispers. This time the chaos isn't as marked as if was in earlier tracks and they follow that melody line pretty well throughout.

"Stillborn/Isolate" closes the four-track album. It opens with tones of splendor but with dark undertones. The Black Metal blueprint comes in pretty quickly after the brief opening. Drums, guitars and vocals rage at impossible speeds. There are some seductive pauses along the way, but the intensity doesn't really let up. Overall, this was just a mediocre album for me. As I have mentioned many times before, Black Metal has greatly diversified over the past decade and I get why some bands want to stay true to the style in its original form, but it makes for a fairly boring listening experience when they can't let go of the past. True "Kvlt" Black Metal purists might however find this to their liking, but I need more diversity.