Hobbled and milking a freshly herniated organ of defensive crepitation back under rib, the sputtering and infected corpse-lung of reeking reverberation distends, slips, and splatters its body into prolapse-pushing writhe with every fifth step of its glistening, thousand-toothed limbs. With hot-to-the-touch momentum achieved and bloated innards in hand the shambling but stabbed quick gait of Toronto, Canada-based death metal project Fathomless Ritual prepares the necessary gears, the freshly juicing gore, and wads of primitive skull-gel for this first fiery summoning. What builds across the scraped-up path trodden by ‘Hymns for the Lesser Gods‘ is a multi-scenic depiction of shocking encounters wherein the formation of grotesque abominations and deplorable worship of underling-level horrors provides primal and putrid portals to sharp-angled riffs and guttural outbursts. Arcane yet technically sound methods for awkwardly shaped and groove-built statements give birth to a rhythmic cavern-bound surrealism herein, an approachable yet finely sorted exploration of unreal ancient death metal sounds in a not-so commonly extrapolated tradition.

Fathomless Ritual is a newer project from musician Brendan Dean whom we know quite well for his more recent (other) solo project Pukewraith and of course collaborations in the indomitable Gutvoid and death-thrashers Fumes. There are plenty of other bands we could consider within the whole of the artists body of work but these are the more ‘new old school’ indoctrinated horrifiers foundered on the riff and with great appreciation for Finnish and North American death metal per sometimes shared traits and tendencies. It was a great surprise to see Transcending Obscurity scoop up several related bands but this new and completely unknown solo deal from Dean was unexpected, a primitive cosmic horror-death metal gig fixated on the Demilichian constant, the sixteenth six-toothed dimensional belch-and-belt fed sort of auto-muscular contraption focused on a brutal swinging n’ gurgling type of ‘old school’ pre-1993 style of technical death metal.

Taken at face value what the artist does here within a ~40 minute death metal debut setting might seem outright automatic in its appearance, an act of worship delt by a possessed directive, but we could instead potentially view ‘Hymns for the Lesser Gods‘ as a thorough retuning of Demilich‘s conceptual rhythmic statements, not entirely stripped of their odd-timed creep and gush but given a doubly insistent pace, exaggerated quasi-inhaled vocalizations, warbling lead guitar layers in performative whammy-whipping stance, and all of this used as a taut skin stretched across the primitive and hardcorish stomp of today’s North American death metal adjacent vision of underground gore-death. By raising the kinetic energy of this modus and not delving too hard into performative technical or virtuosic showcase the underground allure of the listening experience arrives at a continuous and engrossing rate of flow, ensuring an immersive and intently focused anchor point for Dean to riff upon without much of a break for its duration.

For most of Side A, or the first four songs, the clangor of Fathomless Ritual in motion is relentless in its rush and we don’t get any real relief from this hunt for ‘Nespithe‘-style grooves until the ‘Necroticism…‘-era Carcass-esque twist and squealing riffs of “Grafted to the Chambers of Mirth” eventually offers some outward variation upon a theme. By avoiding the shred-death and deathgrind afflicted spectrum we often find in Demilich inspired bands these initial pieces do well to reinforce their focus on said grooves, keeping each song locked into tormented circles of riff (such as those found on early cacophonic standout “Exiled to the Lower Catacombs”, as the main focus and characterization of ‘Hymns For the Lesser Gods‘. Maintaining a guttural, low-lurching growl allows some inflection from the vocals without stretching too heartily beyond ‘old school’ death metal precepts. This does well to keep the tunnel vision beaming as we pushing through the throatier, slow-burning snaking of the guitar work which develops in approach of the mid-point. This album does appear composed specifically for two-sided medium in mind and sends the ear off into the distance as that first side ends its energetic cut with a more atmospheric song. Side B more-or-less commits four acts in keeping general parity with the first half of the album.

The programmed drums on this album have a leg-up on those of Pukewraith and primarily due the to more densely set clobbering this style of death metal insists upon, their role in the fray is entirely non-intrusive but does create a sense of dryness, a clean and crisp consistency which doesn’t stack up next to say, the latest Cryptworm LP in terms of organic presence. They are built well enough to hide their robotic sub-dermal layers nonetheless. This is helped along by Dean‘s focus on a cable-thick board clapping bass guitar tone, percussive and crisp enough to tank through the hairiest scrambling ‘Hymns For the Lesser Gods’ has to offer while keeping it an effective tonal outline for the tunneling hard speed of certain riffs, such as the last third of “Gelatinous Being of Countless Forms”… the point where the eggs hatch and the body fully begins to melt under the heat of their gestation. But not before “Cosmic Refractions from the Basin of Blood” allows us a very straightforward example of the unfaltering focus of this album, driven to do the one thing that it does but also generate some palpable energy and mind-bending interest which isolates those olden and obscure avant-garde death metal grooves into something easily approached yet still underground grotesque. Pieces like this don’t necessarily stand out in the murk of the record but they do count toward the warped and mushed-out density of its overall spin.

The songs which do ultimately stick out within the dankness of this debut typically take some extra time to root themselves, ensuring the endpoint of each half provides its two main dramatic peaks and each song goes somewhere and cuts out around the ~4-5 minute mark. Though it’d all rang a bit samey once the whole of the record was taken in there is enough tact, plenty of tactless brutality, and plenty of jog-along riffs which made repeated listens entirely worthwhile as I’d revisited this record over the course of a few months. Ultimately the tunnel vision of the record works for its singularly set directive, expanding a certain tradition without becoming too overtly repetitive in its variations upon a central theme. While this doesn’t leave much room to tout any sense of originality or never-before-heard ideas the finesse of the rhythm guitar and bass work and punishing percussive tackle of the experience made for great listening every time I’d picked it up and one which doesn’t wholly discard the ‘old school’ underground death metal feeling where that core concept first arrived from. A high recommendation.

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