A horrified and unreal union of two nowadays ‘old school’-minded death/doom metal entities smeared across a full-length platter, ‘Utterances From Below‘ showcases the grotesque damage done between each long-fought and now shambling-to-life crews in fairly equal displays of putridity arisen. Set to 33⅓ and lumbering between the intimacy of rotten flesh and voidspeak Virginia Beach, Virginia-based trio Night Hag offer the punched-clean-off jaw of side one and over on the second half we stare into the dead eyed maw-beak of cosmic horrified Tuscan quartet Burial as they blaze all afterburners in an attempt to break free of the ancient one threatening to devour all. A strong pairing at face value and one which delivers substantial, serious material on both sides this’ll be an assured necessity for a fan of either or both groups, much less anyone deep-set in their pursuit of morbid death and doom metal terrors.

My first impression of Night Hag actually came from another split 12″ release from Rotted Life back in 2021 when they’d gone halfsies with another fantastic band, Cryptic Brood, wherein the likewise substantial length of that LP primed me to appreciate the heady, buried in filth dementia of their sound. Often likened to the more sluggish side of (earlier) Hooded Menace as well as Derkéta and Autopsy‘s more doom-stricken side these folks absolutely impressed me with their early 2022 debut LP ‘Phantasmal Scourge‘ (which I’d reviewed at the time) and as you’d expect this is the main reason I went into this split release hyped to hear what was next from these folks. From the moment they’d kicked into “Dead Person on You” with a reverb shattered blast and a riff you can count-out on one six-fingered hand I’d gotten the creeped to hell classic death metal filth to the face desired as that mid-paced opening gave way to their slower, slugged-at sound which is where I’d felt their debut shined most often. The slowest, ugliest piece on their side of the split is of course the standout I’d recommend most as “Moldy Slab of Human Meat” is both excruciating and inventive, giving their dry-rotted bass guitar tone a moment of its own around ~3:33 minutes into the song and threshing in waves beyond that point. Another excellent showing from these folks and at a time where substantial (read: sincere at all) ‘old school’ death metal is brutally rare.

Of course I enter every split biased as possible and headed into Side B recalling that Italian death metal band Burial never quite did it for me with their Swedish/Finnish death metal inspired death/doom metal sound. When their debut full-length (‘Inner Gateways To The Slumbering Equilibrium At The Center Of Cosmos‘, 2021) released I’d compared its brash HM-2 scrambled gloom to bands like Ascended (Finland) and Decomposed (Sweden) upon first impression but of course they’d prove to have their own exaggerative atmospheric verve on that album which reached for longer pieces, atmospheric expansion which recalled the earliest work of Krypts at times. For their two roughly ~8-9 minute pieces on this split they impress in the ways that they link the chaotic buzzing overdrive of their guitar sound with the aching burn it creates when left to cut through the thickly resonant atmosphere of their production sound. “Called by the Tomb” feels huge in the way a Spectral Voice song might but loses some of its edge due to the crumbly, cranked-to-eleven guitar sound. Despite not liking all of their choices I’d found the vocalist impressive and imposing on these two pieces and the way they’d stretched each piece into an unreal yet fluid piece certainly incited the right sort of dread one’d want from this style. “Below the Crest of Waves” reinforced this to some degree with its echoing main guitar lines and the brutal break around ~5:53 minutes into the piece. Though I found this type of distortion simply becomes grating when it eats so much of the band’s presence these are some of my favorite piece from these folks to date.

As a showcase of two of the more notable, mention-worthy ‘old school’ conscious death/doom metal bands brutalizing the underground today ‘Utterances From Below‘ strikes me as essential for the sake of being a big fan of Night Hag though I did ultimately come to appreciate the soundscape which Burial leans into thanks to a couple of very strong atmospheric death metal compositions. As is the case with any split release my recommendation will have to take a backseat to how much like either, or both, bands but in any case this is an above-average spin with a solid chunk of repeatable death/doom metal on each side. A high recommendation.

---