Where we start crawling along this corridor is where we end, pacing out of a wilting spiral in eight-staged collapse. Envisioning mass death Portland, Oregon-based death/doom metal quartet Excarnated Entity come armed with a new logo and new life breathed into their war-ravaged realm of malevolent yet surreal post-apocalyptic muse on this debut full-length album. ‘Mass Grave Horizon‘ offers suffering and death in cyclic whorls, a path which stabs and fumes back upon the wheel but ultimately succumbs to subterranean rebirth and an eternal return to war. Girded by viscerally achieved dread and vivified guitar interest this first cycle feels sets into motion a damningly repeatable curse enacted within each listen as greater doom indents the mind in vengeful passage ’til eroded, cratered beyond recognition.

Excarnated Entity formed among mostly Seattleites circa 2018 with vocalist/bassist Dan Fried (ex-Anhedonist) fronting an ‘old school’ death and doomed gathering of folks he’d previously worked with in Bloody Master and a few Vrasubatlat-related gigs alongside Ian of Cerebral Rot on guitars, soon getting to work on an impressive demo tape which’d been released about a year after they’d formed. ‘Stillborn in Ash‘ had been all-too nonchalant of a self-release considering how damned impressive it was off the jump but it did eventually catch the ears of a few labels with Nuclear Winter eventually remixing/remastering for a proper issue with the vinyl being delayed to the point that I believe I’d reviewed the 12″ mLP version in early 2021, and glowingly, remarking: “[‘Stillborn in Ash’] exists within the very fine grey area between the most elite old school pantheon of the mid-90’s, the Incantation-esque candor of the late 2000’s, and the ‘new old’ school death metal of today out of the Pacific Northwest…” alongside a note about drummer Mike Stone‘s interpretation being the key to both the old world and the new. Think of the places where Ossuarium and Ceremonium met in their interpretation of doom, or where early Cenotaph and Funebrarum felt the most cold and spacious and you’ve some vague sense of that original sound.

Consider that demo era the Mark I version of the band as the move to Portland prompted Fried to switch to rhythm guitars, onboarding lead guitarist Nick Strickler while Rory Flay (ex-Triumvir Foul, Ash Borer) joined on bass effectively replacing the duo of guitarists that’d played on the demo/mLP. This effectively changed the sound of the band and I emphasize -effectively- in the sense that while the primitive and horrified plumb of their first work was incredible in its own right ‘Mass Grave Horizon‘ is a different beast, a complete entity and more distinctly inspired by traditional doom metal in addition to the haunted death/doom of the 90’s without eh, lurking under the gothic side of the wheel. The lead guitars are the key to the gate in this respect with Strickler‘s additions likewise spanning to touch upon the Finno-Swedish ‘Karelian Isthmus‘-edged groans of Gorement, some of the more patient melodicism from Bolt Thrower, and the draining spiritus of demo-era Cathedral and Paradise Lost in the more lyrical leads explored. Where we start, though, is a watery and wandering motif from opening salvo “Abjection” a short piece which is echoed in variation throughout the album (see: last third of “Irradiated Shadows“) but most distinctly at its peak on closer “Gallery of Defeat”. If you’re worried I’ve made this record sound colorful or eclectic to start, don’t worry this is still a miserable and oppressive slow-burning death/doom metal experience attuned to keen ‘old school’ ear’d folks but take note that it is a leap, a decidedly different outcome beyond the demo which still makes canonical sense.

Their blade swings slow in hypnotic arc. — It should be no surprise that this album has riffs considering the subterranean rhythms these folks have under their collective belts, ‘Mass Grave Horizon‘ pulls everything under one hellish bat-winged umbrella of napalmed mud and smoke-filled air as the humming along mid-to-slow pace and feels yanked unwillingly, gripped with a fight from their 2.5 steps down (at least) thickened churn, creating a consistent atmosphere throughout. To some this might read samey as an experience, tonally drowning in a miserable grey sea but anyone prone to the nuance of death/doom metal rhythms will identify above-average work here in general and the flow of the full listen will offer intense immersion with some viably crestfallen additions to their oeuvre. “Carcinogen Shroud” makes it clear that this is a death metal band as its opening riff couldn’t be more classic in its familiar countenance, and pacing is slithering fire between points of crushing blow. I’d especially liked the synth/keyboard that accompanied the drop into doom around ~2:40 minutes into the opener, not only for its unsettling empyrean hits but for the unexpected step into this album that feels more than a small shot beyond their demo in terms of composition and recording/production values.

O’er at the end of Side A “Corridor of Flame” begins with a mountaintop clash between the thunderous intro riff and the off-kilter lead, a blurry statement which aligns neatly as the first couple of verses hit the respective gloom-showering riff n’ wandering lead guitar rant. Here we find a waltz toward a brilliantly wandering doom metal riff, an early Peaceville-rotted spark which begins to ebb into something nearly Paradise Lost related in its downturned progressions and percussive lunges into double-bass drum swells. Even if the piece appears dissociative and unpredictable in its overall phrasing this doesn’t stop the lengthy 8+ minute trip of “Corridor of Flame” from being a major highlight, proof of an evolutionary event where all of the shades of Excarnated Entity read with increasing depth while remaining stoic and cold in presence.

The most successful point in the full listen for my own taste comes with the transition from the first half to the second where “Paralytic Reverie” arrives with a Finnish death-adjacent death/doom lunge, not exactly ‘The Ending Quest‘ but booming with all of the downtuned thunderous and sweeping movement they’d built up in the first half with a melody creeping out the ears and eyes. From Bolt Thrower-esque melodic walking tirades unto the surprising dive and wail outburst that cracks through around ~2:24 minutes into the piece there is a traditional streak of mastery in these rhythms but also a wild hair that does well to make the transition an ugly thrill in passage to Side B; Of course there are more representative songs at the peak of the album as the first half carried the dismal mind up to a ~8.5 minute plateau so does the second half lead us there but hits upon the sublimity of “The Butcher’s Pulpit”, a point where classic 80’s/early 90’s doom metal riffs harmonize in joint-snapping dread with the keening lead above and resting upon the ‘Dance of December Souls‘-esque intro to the godlike second apex, “Gallery of Defeat”.

With a bit of patience spent learning their elaborately staged and richly dense-with-ideas vision ‘Mass Grave Horizon‘ offers a perpetually overcast and affecting full listen, a sitting which likewise makes great sense in its rounded-off ‘old school’ adjacent death metal shape and tunneling inward motion. Introspective, delirious with depressive drive, and mulling in its thundered atmospheric roll the matured yet forever underground gleam of Excarnated Entity‘s debut suggests they were beyond ready for a full-length statement, overflowing with ideas that constitute far more than the expected horrified gloom at a high standard. A high recommendation.

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