Despite a four-year gap since IGNOMINY's debut EP, "Fear the Living", the band's latest offering is completely worth the wait. As debut full-lengths go, the gnarlier the better in my eyes and my god does IGNOMINY do that in its crushing continuation of warped and twisted chaos in "Imminent Collapse". These Canadian purveyors of avant-garde dissonant death know that resistance is futile when it comes to howling, unhinged brutality, and the floodgates open with the band's spewing stylistic of cacophonic, mayhemic audial intrusion.

Throughout "Imminent Collapse", IGNOMINY manage to contort and construct a torrid journey through dismal bleakness that manifests in sprays of aloofly dissonant guitar shrieks, chaotic fills, and warped vocals. The mish-mash mangled formula of IGNOMINY's sound makes for an intrepid feat, lending itself as an audial coagulant that slops its stickiness on a winding velocity of progressive, punishing carnage with hints of doom splattered amongst its harsh noise-fuelled butchery. "Frantic Apeasement" beckons something unpalatable and jarring, slapping with its unyielding brutality, whilst the crazing of "Defaulting Genetics" stomps in its deliberately glitchy temporal mindfuck, demented riffing, with some maniacal growls chucked into the mix resulting in a recipe for a chunkily beefy slab of brawn.

IGNOMINY manage to create some seriously gnarly atmospheres with the use of contrasting soundscapes and the tracks' continuity and natural ebb and flow that breathe life into this record, too. The spew of "Reminiscence of Hatred" offers one of the standout moments of "Imminent Collapse" rammed to the hilt with dizzying riffs, burning vocal delivery and diverse drumming that allows for some eclectic time signatures to brilliantly ooze their filth throughout this track. The nightmarish nuances of "Nightmare Bacteria" harbour an insidiously diseased output, combining the nasty trudge of a thickened bass backbone contrasting with boisterous guitar lines and bellowing vocals that flit between the low register and shrill screams. But it's the organic transition to "Convulsions" and its pulsating ugliness that'll get under your skin in all the best ways, as will the discomposing punishment of "Visuals" and its fleetingly sumptuous tones that quickly plunge into waves of abyssal darkness.

As a sidenote - and an important one at that - for anyone partial to tight, meticulous, and razor-sharp drumming, you'll be over "Imminent Collapse" like flies to a turd, because Lazure really is the absolute highlight throughout. The drum show of "Reminiscence of Hatred", "Convulsions", and "Visuals" are a sheer aural delight, and the crispness of the production only allows for his fills and blasts to flourish and breathe as they deserve, giving the beating heart of this well-oiled machine the limelight it merits.

Whilst it doesn't wholly reinvent the wheel in an already saturated market, "Imminent Collapse" comes with a certain je ne sais quoi that allows it to stand head and shoulders above the rest. IGNOMINY stamps its mark on your eardrums and unloads its din of nastiness plentifully throughout, ensuring that the effortless shine of the quartet's synergy glows amongst the abundant ugliness of this downright barbaric extreme metal opus. <