Their faces twisted in seven different static configurations of horrified lament and pocked with uncountable circuitously darting eyes Los Angeles, California-based post-blackened death/doom metal quintet CIVEROUS are hard to read when the eye remains zoomed in on their richest level of detail. The bigger picture of their work reveals itself with a wider-angled lens, a chugging-slow ‘new old school’ death metal band by first impression but an interesting enough post-metallic hydra upon closer inspection. As their sound and style continue to present as amorphous at a glance on this contiguously generated but well-transmogrified sophomore full-length album their work begins to veer its focus toward a surreal vibe and less around an unceasing riff-dump. A refinement as much as it is a bold departure ‘Maze Envy‘ finds these folks’ work notably ambitious in all that it intends to communicate in just over forty minutes of broad strokes and needled detailing.

Civerous formed circa 2019 between guitarist Daniel Salinas and vocalist Lord Foul (Tzompantli), both of whom also feature in atmospheric/post-black metal project Aylwin. While it’d been quasi-underground ‘old school’ death metal cliques touting their early demo works to start their sound was never so squarely relevant to classic death metal sounds and instead songs like “Glass Reign” and “Mara” from their first demo and split releases suggested thier version of surreal blackened death and doom was structurally built on a knack for post-metal, or post-black metal songcraft. Otherwise the compilation release of that early work (‘The Expedition of Illness‘, 2020) also featured fairly average chuggy off-kilter death metal and generally gave the sense that their multi-faceted approach was either for the sake of a broadly stoked oeuvre or they’d simply had a borderless aim without any prescribed direction in mind.

Focus hadn’t necessarily arrived in terms of style by the time their debut LP (‘Decrepit Flesh Relic‘, 2021) released but they’d done well to figure out how those moving parts could best machine together into an imposing, cavernous death metal result. Lengthier deformed pieces which mulled through atmospheric death metal, post-metal movement, and horrified sounds best represented their strengths. At the time of release my remarks amounted to: “Though this album has a sort of trendy death metal side-project vibe to start with a few shorter boppin’ songs the deeper Civerous lean into various doom metal sub-genre ideas the sooner the album begins to deliver its most effective ideas, starting with the duo of “Rot Delineated (Decrepit Flesh Relic)” and “Hubiku”. In fact if the band focused entirely on the more elaborately doomed style of Side B here I figure ‘Decrepit Flesh Relic’ might’ve been one of my favorite records of the year.” Of course today they’ve more-or-less put that idea to the test with ‘Maze Envy‘ a truncation of forms in some sense yet a more resolutely honed vision beyond the band’s debut.

Instead of endlessly scouring the sub-genre bones cast one could just as well receive Civerous‘ latest work as variously moshable and gloom stricken muse which connects “new old school” and post-music revisionism into a dramatic but slowly formed tonal juxtaposition, a disagreement of forms which is ugly and confrontational moment-to-moment but overall represents an interesting modern death/doom metal fusion. Opener “Shrouded in Crystals” gives us the bludgeon expected beyond their debut but with some manner of string tension whirring in the background per the keyboards before the piece breaks into a set of riffs which begin to suggest this album might be leaning towards a Krypts-like treatment of rhythmic modulation though the moshable trod of the song otherwise leans in a brutal yet crookedly cut motion. This first piece is obviously an important first impression beyond the Penderecki style opening scrape of “The Azure Eye” and the glowy fill of “Endless Symmetry” afterwards as they encapsulate the piece as a reminder that they’ve still got plenty of grotesque riff ideas blowing about.

Where the album begins to slice open its guts and spill of its curiosities comes with “Labyrinth Charm” reprising some of the atmospheric/post-black metal techniques and voicing found on earlier demos and conjuring what could only be described as a… post-death metal piece? Again, I don’t see how these songs relate to one another in theme or in developing a larger cadence to start but the lot of Side A begins to shape a broadly surrealistic vision for this album beyond the brutal scrape of the previous LP. “Levitation Tomb” rounds this thought out, connecting the simply chugging riffs the band lean into so often before dropping into a metallic hardcore breakdown amidst a death/doom metal atmospheric lean and frankly it doesn’t work for my own taste, probably the least interesting piece of the record overall. Otherwise Side B is once again the greater salvation of the experience with two ~10 minute songs which “make” the album per my own experience.

As was the case with the twenty minute two song closure of ‘Decrepit Flesh Relic‘ Civerous‘ best work on this second album realizes itself within two longform pieces, allowing their post-doom approach to rotten modern-yet-old school adjacent death metal to artfully sketch its bigger picture. Beyond “Shrouded in Crystals” this is the main substance of the full listen from my perspective wherein the full integration of post-metallic drift best realizes what was always most interesting about the group’s sound and builds upon their first record’s style in a pronounced way. The title track (“Maze Envy”) thankfully reprises some of the violin/strings infused dramatism that’d made the quasi-title track on the previous album stand out so heartily, making for a piece which appears to endlessly stretch beyond its breaking point and bleed into the even more emphatic funeral death/doom feeling of closer “Geryon (The Plummet)”. These two pieces amount to a dramatic shift in expression, stylistic churn which only appears more drastic in its launch beyond the mid-paced blackened death lunges of their debut.

The sense that Civerous are creating something relatively new is not entirely lost upon me, the multi sub-genre niche informed interest applied does well to keep ‘Maze Envy‘ compellingly fresh if not always well-conceived in stretching out the brutality of their sound so that it meets end-to-end with purely atmospheric modes. Still, my criticisms stand in terms of the unfocused nature of this band’s general concoction being necessarily assuaged by higher production values and performances which begin to find some notable footing in their ride. A fine production value/render, some new ideas, and excellent cover art (via maestro Juanjo Castellano) all went a long way toward inspiring repeat listens of this album in my case even if this is not necessarily my favorite stylistic outcome beyond atmospheric strands of death metal. That said I’m not so sure these folks have fully grown into their collective skin just yet as we find their second LP represents a second evolutionary step within a fairly young band’s quick ascent. Again, I think the points of mastery found on this album are both obviate in hindsight and nearly buried by the spectacle of fusion attempted in preamble elsewhere and this makes for an unpredictable yet somehow solid impression left by this fairly unique band who only feel an album or two away from shirking underground and ‘old school’ aesthetics for their own progressive idyll. A moderately high recommendation.

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