Deranged Hexes
Malicious
From the Bandcamp page, "at last, it arrives in full-length form bearing the all-too-accurate title "Deranged Hexes." No more but definitely no less, "Deranged Hexes" is everything their previous MALICIOUS recordings delivered. There's no half measures here, nor quarter given; "Deranged Hexes" is full-on blackened Metal of Death insanity given flight on leathery wings. Teeth-gnashing riffery, dangerously unhinged drumming, and feral howls from the abyss...everything comes spilling out their sepulchral cauldron, and fast, leaving no room for breath nor safety in its eight-song/25-minute pillage of impurity. MALICIOUS taunt you to keep up, to resist...to survive. This is true power from Hell!" The album contains eight tracks.
"Infinite Perdition" leads the charge. It's chaotic Death Metal with vocals that echo and the instruments never stop. It picks up towards the end with even more chaos and riffs. "Ecstatis" is more of the same...under three minutes of a nuclear assault. I will say that the band does play tightly, even know the leads are just bit odd and don't really fit the music. It's like Kerry King in the early days of SLAYER. "Hideous Transformations" features vile vocals and the instruments play in this fury of sound that is hard to escape from. Three tracks in, and the songs are starting to blur a bit. This often happens in the genre unfortunately. Cymbals crash as they keep their eyes on the prize.
"Perpetual Paranoia" is another three-minute burner. They sure pack a lot of heat into their music. The main problem is that the songs really don't go anywhere outside of the tight genre boundaries. "Death Embalmed" is more of the same. The guitars rage almost as loudly as the vocals, and the production is somewhat muted. Invictus Productions are a fairly big name out there, but this sounds like it was recorded in their basement on a four-track. "Nefarious Mutations" picks right up where the previous track ended, opening with a guitar solo that does not really mirror the key, if you can even identify the key. The music is so muddled that it's hard to really understand much here.
"Impuritys Total Downfall" is the first song where you get some variation. The opening is suspenseful, but then the music comes raging in. The drummer is working so far I'm afraid his arms and legs might fall off before the album is completed. "Deranged Hexes" closes the album. It's another tormenting sound that I just can't un-hear. The main problem with the album is the lack of variation from one song to the next. I've heard variation in Death Metal before, but this just sounds like a nest of angry bees swarming around your head, stinging you to death. I can't really recommend this to anyone, except perhaps purists of the genre. But with each song about the same length, it gets quite repetitive.
3 / 10
Hopeless
Songwriting
Musicianship
Memorability
Production
"Deranged Hexes" Track-listing:
1. Infinite Perdition
2. Ecstasis
3. Hideous Transformations
4. Perpetual Paranoia
5. Death Embalmed
6. Nefarious Mutations
7. Impuritys Total Downfall
8. Deranged Hexes
Malicious Lineup:
Riku Polameri - Drums
Niko Paasonen - Guitars
Miska Heikurinen - Vocals
Tuomas Laakso - Bass
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