There is no sanctum from this horrified realm as the fevered dreams of our protagonist find all-souls succumbing to daimonian temptation, entering a state of haunted delirium as minds are lost and left wandering the maze of the primeval source. Speaking the ancient tongues, bludgeoning with primal force, what is and always has been unique about Toronto, Ontario-based black/death metal trio ADVERSARIAL still blankets and suffocates the senses here on their long-awaited third full-length album. With nine years having passed and no sign of degradation incurred ‘Solitude With the Eternal…‘ hammers out an elite point of blackened death metal superiority once again, proving the timeless efficacy of their work in one-thousand masterful strokes. Their return is beyond surreal in its accrued profundity, as if banked years ago and now withdrawn with a decade’s worth of wizened wrath now piled atop their legacy into one commanding heap of death worship.

Adversarial formed circa 2007 between three folks active in the greater Toronto-area black and death metal scenes with vocalist/guitarist C.S. (Azothyst) from Sentient , bassist M.M. of black metal band Dead of Winter and drummer E.K. (ex-Nuclearhammer) from brutal death metal band Lapidate and that lineup hasn’t changed beyond their initial union. Each member naturally brought a piece of their past experience into their work starting with their first demo tape (‘Thralls‘, 2008) which’d slowly made waves beyond their local underground circuit at the time. It wasn’t until Blood Harvest‘s short-lived demo-only sub-label Zombie Ritual Tapes reissued that demo in the first half of 2010 that people went a bit more apeshit and as such most will remember the impact of this group from that year. I guess the important context to include here is that while we had Immolation-esque brutality in the superior brain trust of artists like Dead Congregation, Drawn and Quartered and Mitochondrion at the time while many bands had begun to focus on the innovations offered by ‘Outre‘ and ‘Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum‘ having figured some of those general machinations/techniques by 2010. The big deal that’d gotten me riled up over ‘Thralls‘ and the late-year release of their debut LP ‘All Idols Fall Before the Hammer‘ (2010) was that it took things fully back into an clear extreme, a doubly violent direction while still making intricate yet sensical death metal music of it. How did I describe it when I wrote about it back in the day? Something along the lines of “hateful war metal with a Deeds-ass snare ping“.

The main reason many were somewhat surprised by that debut full-length was its choice of stark brutal death metal sound design, having more in common with ‘Reduced to Ashes‘ in terms of how upfront and hollowed-out the drum recording was. I personally loved it and didn’t know/appreciate the difference until the full reissue of ‘Thralls‘ was released as ‘Prophetic Plain of Abyssal Revelation‘ (2011) a little under a year later. Much as Adversarial were lumped in with a group of “chaotic” death metal bands of the era their approach was abundant and wrathfully blunt in its mayhem compared to most of those suggested peers having much more in common with Axis of Advance but an insane extension of that sound which included some insane detail in the rhythm guitar work they’d managed on their ridiculously underrated second full-length (‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism‘, 2015) where they’d iron out the production values to a much higher tier and temper the brutality of their tempo map just enough to create an immense, noisome beast of a record. As we take a closer look at ‘Solitude with the Eternal…‘ that second album will prove a perfect stepping stone between their other two releases and no doubt impress fans of everything from Ulcerate to Diocletian in hindsight.

Some concurrent member’s deployment in Nuclearhammer and Paroxsihzem alongside the more recent formation of Azothyst have been worthwhile ventures in the interim but here nine years later we’re struck over the skull without warning as album number three strikes its fangs into vein quick, whipping through these ~33 minutes as their mayhemic black poison calls for urgency. It truly feels like they’d never taken a break or missed a beat as they reprise the caustic atmospheric fusion of brutality that’d been built up toward by 2015 but now with more refined production values (engineering/mix Vadim Balanyuk, mastering via Damian Herring) which allow these folks to further delve into their abyssal realm by way of a more spacious, dynamically achieved presence. Enormous, unreal, but now far less of a sensorial overload compared to their last two records I think the sound design here should prove key to both encouraging a record which strings along the listeners interest rather than crushing them with it from to back. Though I love the over the top martial command of their first album and its drum sound this still-slapping capture makes ‘Solitude With the Eternal…‘ feel more like a next step, a path to carry on with beyond the last, a refinement which makes great sense when ripping through their discography in succession.

The ringing arpeggiation and tremolo-picked phrasal romp of C.S.‘ guitar work returns sleekened and dramatic tip as “Beware the Howling Darkness on Thine Left Shoulder” acts as our abrupt burst through the opening portal of ‘Solitude With the Eternal…‘, echoing some of the key voicing of ‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism‘ with a more fleet-footed dual rhythmic sense of interplay, dancing in black-shrouded movements atop the egregious pulse of the drums. This is yet the long-standing signature of the band expanded into nuanced form, spreading the technical compression of their ideas into commanding strikes rather than straight machine gun-fire. Still, those ideas are no less potent when given room to breath as we slap right into “Hatred Kiln of Vengeance” one of the more cripplingly brutal killers on the album and surely one of the fastest blasted-at overall. The command of the riffs still speaks to me as a fan of Immolation in how all reverberates together in collective space (see also: “Death is an Advisor in the Woods of the Devil”) though they’ve not lost that Angelcorpse-esque throttle when taking a lens at the more propulsive riffcraft through successive listens. For my own taste it frankly only took those two songs to rile that certain part of my brain and begin to feel like Adversarial had never taken that long-ass break in terms of recording.

No doubt I could pick through every twisted ass face-clawing movement on this record and suggest it is all equally important in statement, I found that much to be true, but what is “new” here is potentially what most will find exciting upon Adversarial‘s return. The suggested refinement of production values (via engineering/mixing by Vadim Balanyuk and mastering by Damian Herring) should be received as the easiest to approach render of the band’s work to date in terms of giving us a thousand-bladed deluge of guitar action with pronounced lead tones but still making room for the ever-impressive hammer of E.K. and somehow getting a dirt-level bass guitar tone to pierce the morass now and then. They’ve done well to preserve a fitting production value for the band’s style and accentuate the cataclysm that it is, smoke and all, without losing it to the hailing barrage beneath.

From the unique chord voicing on the aforementioned “Death is an Advisor in the Woods of the Devil” to the increasingly volatile leads spiking up in each song some manner of illustrative technique is used to depict the cataclysmic events occurring at the ever-intensifying clutch of songs as we pass from the immediacy of the opening numbers through the mid-point of the full listen. Otherwise the first piece I’d wanted to point out with regard to characterizing each song with singular statement is “Witness to the Eternal Light”, a first taste of the extra attention paid the illustrative touch of the band as its introduction indicates the presence of a great beast before the wailing of souls, screaming in torment and scoured by the light hits around ~1:49 minutes in and carries through for the next ~forty or so seconds. Per my own experience these are details that added to the overall intensity of the band’s work when returning for repeat listens. Where I think folks will feel the real powder keg of action is overall is in the very last few pieces where “Merging Within the Destroyer” touches upon a more dissonant touch, jetting through a higher riff count than expected and several movements which stretches out into a song which is nearly double the length of the average on this record. It is an undeniable peaking moment which is smartly met with equal intensity on the shorter bullied-up hits of “Fanes at the Engur”. Not only does this stir up the already stacked up Side B but it feeds into your inevitable cycle back to Side A, which starts with similar intensity.

Is this the ultimate show ’em how moment for 2024 thus far in terms of blackened death metal? I think most anyone who has been a fan since the band first appeared back in the day will feel that way. I would rather view ‘Solitude With the Eternal…‘ as a blinding nuclear event dropping right on target, a level of violence -and- precision more death metal bands should aspire to in general lest they appear irradiated and null to the indoctrinated. It took a minute to shake off the dust and crack a few knuckles but Adversarial once again roped me into something like… fifty full listens before I’d finished gathering my thoughts and they did so by upping the ante and tweaking their angle-in once again, building upward into the best yet version of their gig to the point that I couldn’t argue its primacy down. A very high recommendation.

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