After a solid debut in 2011 with the well-received full-length "Nihilgoety", Aussie death metallers ESKHATON has racked up three full-lengths and two EP's. The latest instalment in their depraved catalogue of brutal death metal graces us hungry metal fiends with the merciless EP, "Horracle", a five-track shocker of haughtily punishing death metal that your ears will feast on for days. If slews of reckless, unbounded energy - fashioned in the most brutal and robust way possible - is your thing, you'll fall in lust with ESKHATON's newest addition to bloodthirsty death metal.

Given the unrelenting, extreme nature of "Horracle", I can't think of a more deserving EP that warrants a warning label being slapped on it and crime scene tape plastered all over it. The abundant choppy blasts of "Omnicidol" are ruinous, especially with the cleverly concealed thick grooves that lap up in amongst the colossal beats, and the vocals alone will blow your nuts off into oblivion. "Khaossuary" reaches into the belly of an unhinged beast, bearing the bowels of mankind in its clutches, and tearing chunks of flesh from bone with gargantuan, gut-wrenching growls, meaty guitars, and strapping rhythms that get your blood spewing from your jugular. It's safe to say that ESKHATON knows how to charge you square into a brick wall of audial punishment, but if the storming chaos of this track doesn't thrust you into a walloping mess, "Vortexecution" will pummel you into a heaped pile of mush with its harrowing blend of cacophonous tag-team annihilation of horrisonous drums and exploding guitars. This is death metal fortified by misery and damnation - unashamedly and unapologetically lacking in melody - and most certainly not for the fainthearted.

Storming in with its overbearing malevolence, "Aftermathemagician" is a more calculated affair of trudged death doom that wallows and wails in its dismal, downtuned nastiness. Delightfully pernicious, ESKHATON chuck an amalgamation of sinisterly, subtle growls in amongst a mammoth mound of sheer noise and dread-fuelled glory; these guys clearly love a good soul extraction or two. Bookending "Horracle", ESKHATON has opted for the battering ram of "Nethereal", a visceral concoction of ripping, oppressive nuances that rivet notches of pure evil into your brain and offers the best type of cranial torture a metalhead's pocket can buy. It's extreme, it's punishing, and it's disgustingly good.

ESKHATON describe their sound as "cyclonic death metal", a fittingly concise description. But if you want a little more elaboration, I can tell you that you feel like you're caught up in a whirling dervish of mayhemic brutality, as if you've been sucked into a vortex of deranged, carcinogenic mutation of inhuman noise, and it's bloody glorious. Dive into this gnarly EP at your peril.