From Bandcamp, "The pandemic situation in the world changed so many things, and why it seemingly slowed certain processes down, it forced others to evolve. Tobias Schaub needed a vehicle to get some thoughts and ideas out of his system. Therefore, he did what he does best: He wrote songs. With the time a whole album was created, and he started to write lyrics for it - lyrics about the technological evolution, with its variety of (dis)advantages. DYSMAL was born. The new album has ten songs.

"Memory Leak" is the first; a short piano led intro with ominous tones, seguing into "Emergent Peceptrons." From the first new bars, it's hard to tell the style. It's Extreme Metal, with some melodic overtones, but the vocals are quite grating. The piano notes lead me to believe that it's Melodic Death Metal. The background is pretty full as well, and the band plays with confidence. "Hypotheism" has a similar sound, but the energy is dialed up a few notches. The slower passage is absolutely brutal, and the piano note really help to augment the sound. "Hidden Layers" begins with clean tones, and segues into a slow, horrid sound of discovery...almost like the layers you are peeling back uncover things that you didn't want to see.

"Exnovation" is another brutal and punishing offering. The guitar work is fairly intricate as well, and again the band does a nice job rounding out the sound with backing elements. "Brute Force" is just that...a forceful and aggressive song with some stopping and starting accents from the rhythm section. "Content Contaminated" features some nifty drum fills along with the staccato rhythms. The chorus has some intricate melodies in the lead guitars as well. The roar of the vocals could wake the dead, and the slower passage with clean vocals is actually quite lovely. "Immersion" closes the album; the longest song. The opening tones are almost regal, and you feel like you have been taken back in time to witness the coronation of a king. Doleful piano notes round out the mid-section. What a beautifully depressing way to end an album.

Overall, and I have said this many times before, the Melodic Death Metal genre was quite original when it started back in the early 1990's, but today, it thrives with a variety of different bands. From my experience, many bands are better at the Death side of the genre, but not so much as the melody side. In the case of DYSMAL, they have both sides down quite well on "Gates of Apperception." They have smartly filled the background with ambient elements, some piano, and even some clean vocals, but they don't take away from the meat of the sound, which is powerful, and weighted.