Just a few years beyond formation with at least a few shows under their belt and a well-received demo tape as proof of concept in hand Cincinnati, Ohio-based blackened death metal quartet NOGOTHULA are readied up with their debut full-length statement, by all accounts a point which they’ve arrived upon with seeming relative ease. With no growing pains to show and a decided-upon sound which shows little need of tweaking for posture or presence it is clear that ‘Telluric Sepsis‘ comes from folks who’ve got plenty of experience under their belts and largely pre-existing chemistry to help ’em speed past the learning process right into gear. Though they’ve blackened the skies upon introduction here you’ll find pure and pummeling death metal of considerable quality throughout this album, a feat sure to psych the skulls of old heads into action and show the fumble-chug crews of today the superior brutality and thrashing groove United States death metal was once known for while putting their own modern (but not too modern) spin on the blackened side of the fence.

Nogothula formed as a trio circa 2021 playing self-described “frantic and pulverizing” death metal between vocalist/bassist Eric Payne (Verment) and guitarist Colton Deem (Valdrin, Lucis Absentia) seemingly on a whim before their early result held enough water to warrant bringing in drummer Alex Hooper. That original trio (with Hooper programming drums, from what I gather) quickly arrived upon a preliminary set of songs and put it to tape as ‘Gore Vortex Ascension‘ (2022). Much of the sound and style we find on their debut LP today was formed well enough on that first demo/EP recording if we look to songs like “Bible Bile” and opener “Squelching the Wound” though the black metal influenced side of the band was not quite as clearly defined and the mix/master was admittedly still pretty rough at that point. It nonetheless provides us with direct precedence for how this album turned out as a reflection of brutal intent with organic, canonically United States borne blackened death metal style.

For this album Nogothula have added a second guitarist in Nick Moeller who has been touring with the band since at least 2023 and joins two other members of Verment in this band for a natural sympatico achieved up front. The addition of a second guitarist doesn’t initially appear to add anything to the studio results as their first release was likewise arranged for two guitarists but it does feel like this has allowed for far more ambitious interplay for the band to aspire to in terms of compositional wielding found later on in the tracklist as well as some restless brutality up front. Opener “Chaospore” makes the big first impression here as they show what they can do with a blackened register and a half dozen punisher riffs as they start somewhere near peak Nile-isms and begin to deconstruct the maximal approach of the late 90’s/early 2000’s black/death era with more modern black metal attributes. As we push right into the second and even more intense thread of “Catacomb Cauldron” the brutal amplification of Morbid Angel‘s swamped-out forms and the morbid creep of their Incantation-esque stomp presage a few more technical riff runs, suggesting this won’t be a belligerent outing in full but rather creates a moment worthy of say, the first Anata album but with a stylized vocal trade-off between rasps and roars as more frequently tandem occurrence. I could dig a lot deeper to get to some more exacting points of likeness (ca. 2013 Lecherous Nocturne, maybe?) but at some point the larger U.S. scenery produced so much in this general style that people stopped listening, the thing to note here is that these folks have their own nowadays spin on it with some of those same classics-minded exaggerations in hand.

If you’d headed into this record wanting more pieces along the lines of “Bible Bile” I would generally point toward “Lacerating Vibrations” for its focus on brutality and at least one moshable breakdown-type move alongside a bit of Mass Effect 2 OST level synth to fade the song at the end. This song marks the point where their treatment of blackened death metal begins to touch upon abstract, dissonant and generally more exploratory use of atmosphere. “Observers of Perpetual Rot” tasks itself with a more distinct trade-off of the two vocalists while bringing a death-thrashing push to its efforts, from my point of view this represents the full brunt of the intense shift of gears on the full listen and likely where many folk’s minds will become overwhelmed with the increasingly technical swirling admixture of forms and phrasing as the record reaches its point of peaking thought and “Labyrinthian Sunken Spires” is the one to further push this extreme into the dissonant blackened swerve of their riffcraft. We could’ve rightfully considered ‘Telluric Sepsis‘ a riff record beforehand but this is maybe the song to reinforce that choice and begin to suggest this is more than just a classic black/death metal extension in the tradition of the earlier 2000’s. Here even the most detail-obsessed ear should begin to exhaust a bit as Nogothula allow no real relief in crafting a wall-to-wall rhythmic obsession with serious class and cruelty applied.

The only real complaint to lodge here is that ‘Telluric Sepsis‘ is a ride but doesn’t necessarily endeavor to distinguish one song from another within its linear bash-through. Some distinction comes by way of the occasional focus on interruptive pacing, typically the more black metal afflicted section of any given song, though the majority of these pieces allow for a certain sameness as a byproduct of a consistency of texture and tone which does not read as variation in a broader sense. For the underground death metal aficionado used to a history of very focused, single-minded death metal records that is part of the band’s sound, their signature and a great hinge point for interest but for the average passerby it should be a dense and brutal affair without any great peaks in the fray beyond a few huge “breakdowns”. That said, each third of the album shifts gears to some degree to keep things interesting; As we hit “Morbid Seas of Stygian Blood” I’d felt like the band’s sound had undergone a transformation in the midst of the full listen, wherein the final three pieces on the album didn’t seem possible without charging through the first half, and this adds to the feeling they’d been leading the ear toward this thrashing momentum (which is upheld well per the title track) all along. It felt like a different tangent to start and instead proves to be a run-up to the nearly nine minute closer which focuses on an extended atmospheric build and plays with pace in a way which is fitting enough for a grand end-point.

From my point of view the sound and style of Nogothula‘s efforts do not read as entirely unheard of as a fan of blackened death metal but this release does feel inspired in the sense that it spanks it rhythms with a furor first and foremost as music which has a certain classicist appeal while still messing around with less dated idealization of how a death metal record could be “blackened”. They could take this ideal further and I’d found that idea about as invigorating as this album was on its own. Likewise I’d great appreciated how confidently stated ‘Telluric Sepsis‘ was, not at all forced in its delivery and just knotted enough in its compositions to remain interesting after numerous spins. Perfectly fitting production values, slick and tensile sounds which are organic in their final pass but still unreal without presenting as artificial in any sense is a great accomplishment via Noah Buchanan (Mercinary Studios) and the surreal blood-balled horror of the cover art (per Niklas Webjörn Weird Art) likewise represents the sensation of the album well in its harried strokes and intentionally horrified sense of self. The whole package adds up here as the band do well to represent themselves as they’ve quickly proven beyond capable and well above average within this first effort. All that I need now for full ascension as a listener is a few more memorable pieces and a good enough reason to read the lyrics. A high recommendation.

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