Carved in relief behind a wall of insidious plastic totem the desperate unrequited notion of being finally claws deep enough upon the barrier-face to see the glow of the numinous, now silhouetting downturned brow and boggled eye’d urgency in reach of discovery. Elementally charged at a distance yet mysteriously atomized in its kaleidoscopic dioramic staging up close, the Giger-curved and tightly enwrapped symbiotic nature of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based progressive death metal species Horrendous only grows more curious at present point of concentration. Viewing the nature of existence from a panoptic-blurred perspective ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ provides context from a high transcendental stage, empathizing with denizens by way of shrieking space-operatic dramatism before becoming enmeshed in the ecstasy, the sheer awe of their current consciousness.

Horrendous formed circa 2009 with a fairly unique and energetic take on the Boss HM-2 driven spectrum of late 80’s/early 90’s death metal, almost immediately popular for their raw ‘old school’ appeal early on their debut full-length album (‘The Chills‘, 2012). Not the types to juice a single point of interest these folks took on a rapid series of evolutionary events over the course of the 2010’s incorporating unique shades of melody and progressive outbursts which weren’t so common when (‘Ecdysis‘, 2014) hit me, it’d been the defining release from the band at the time, or, at least the first eruptive leap out of the carapace of the old ways. They’d had greater distances to travel and I suppose I’d detailed as much when I’d favorably reviewed their fourth LP (‘Idol‘, 2018) released. If I were to try and position ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ within a revisit of the increasingly progressive discography of the band it’d be a point of potent exuberance, a freely pivoting train of thought which steps away from the great scale-and-skin lined halls of the past and cinches its statement down to a skull-sized container.

The majority of ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ moves along a steady clip, kept buoyant by an exact density of ideas which only ring out so long, only cut into points of repetition briefly and seem intent on “correcting” the chasm-deep atmospheric indulgences and dramatism of beloved ‘Idol‘ with a whirlwind of a response, a ~38 minute showing of finesse which builds an argument for a potently Horrendous-specific sound, a culmination of what they’ve essentially been building between the core trio since ‘Ecdysis‘ began to chip away at the reigns of melodic and progressive death metal strictures. Because I had loved the dramatism and loft of ‘Idol‘ and felt like it was a deeper, more patiently set future for the band’s trip it been rough stepping into the brief-and-biting movement of this record despite it being even less regulated by stabbing motions of death and thrash metal in general. In stepping away from the ‘Focus‘-level ascension of the previous album the ear is left with a statement on par with early 90’s ex-thrasher built prog-metal side of things, an escalator which uses virtuosic whirl of swinging-loose formations to stretch beyond canon stature.

Wearing the head of Ba’al, musing the nature of being. — Expect a few accessible hooks, surprising chorales, clean vocal harmonies, shouted declarations, and a hundred masks displayed between as many different screams as Horrendous advance as a horde of cosmic-horrified goblins on opener “Chrysopoeia (The Archaeology of Dawn)”. In keeping with their long list of strong opening pieces, on album number five they’ve presented a very clear starting point which takes its time stretching from its ‘Terminal Redux‘-level opening thrash bombast to the grand theater which eventually begins to sprawl and flex in myriad directions. The trade-off between Matt Knox‘ clean vocals and Damien Herring‘s ever-evolving rasps ~2:09 minutes into the piece, a preamble to some of the bigger outbursts on the song, are among the most tightly composed moments on the full listen where the whole of the 7+ minute opener has an almost anthemic 70’s prog tipped shakes to its flourishes, specifically the leads. If you’d only engaged with that first song it’d feel like a tidal wave to start, a second swipe at the exposition of ‘Idol’ but clustered with flourish and fanfare. That isn’t how the full listen flow from that point, though.

There is a crisp tautness to the rhythm section render on ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ which not only functionally creates space for the army of voices shared between the two vocalist/guitarists but also rests in the middle of the mix, giving that auld prog-death timbre while still allowing for enough precision when interplay, a sort of jammed-at affect slinks into several transitional points on the album. The spaces set in between the opener and the flute-enriched “Preterition Hymn” feel entirely liminal, bounding in nondescript movements (excepting the kinetic thrashing edge of “Neon Leviathan”) and simply drift in lazing flow (“Aurora Neoterica”) before this short but notable apex once again stretches entirely out of the known Horrendous shell, new voices and different tech which frankly doesn’t amount to a finished thought in every case; While the journey towards the far more substantial “Cult of Shaad’oah” pays off with a Sadus-kissed bite and weave to its intense riffcraft the goal of the record now more clearly suggests dementia, restless transitional moods more than it does focused aggression. Staring off Side B with the biggest and longest sustained groove on the album works quite well and the space-insect filled pit of “Exege(en)esis” breathes a different mood as we pass that transitional crest on the full listen and steep in the weirding voice of the second half.

The title track (“Ontological Mysterium“) threatens to be the final release of any latest pure death metal energies to start, tracing its power lines with a crookedly blazing main riff to start. Instead of cutting through a linear command of collision they instead loosen the focus on the song into a circular tarantella, a bounding waltz through the mid-point which finds ’em joining hands for group vocals as an ominous narrator is above and bug-eye screams surround. Again, this moment and the piece as a whole doesn’t feel leagues outside of what ‘Idol‘ had been doing, in fact it sounds like a direct continuation of the voice developed on that album yet it now seems apparent they were not intent on fully nestling into that groove; ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ simply ends at one point, burning off some bigger grooves after having carefully milled and sparingly doled out the more thrilling aggression of their sound. Closer “The Death Knell Ringeth” serves as the escalator out in that sense, a chugging step outside the body which doesn’t finish the thought in the way that the title track had before it. This’d been my only real gripe with the running order this time around, that they were on a roll and set the listener scrambling to keep up with their subtle run-on abstractions until Horrendous essentially ducked out, and just as it starts to feel like we’ve got a double LP’s worth of buzz in the chamber.

If we are to zoom out and place this album out in the wilds with the progressive death metal of todays and yesterdays it certainly stands out for its heavily stylized sound design, their expressive if not sometimes still stiff-necked performances, and at that point the vision quest of the whole thing makes more sense as a point of key intent. After five years one could begin to make the argument that these folks are still moving along their evolutionary timeline quicker than even their main project can keep up, that this album is impressive and even somewhat daring at it’s core yet more recent side projects (see: The Silver) begin to suggest ‘Ontological Mysterium‘ isn’t their endpoint, or, anywhere near a final leap into the decided-upon self. A high recommendation.

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