A thousand maddening obscurations limit what can be seen to fast-flashing horrors, circular-set teeth and spitting holes strobe-lit by sparking wires and the scrape of claws against steel… all of it just out of reach of the eye but deafening to the ear as New York-based brutal death metal quartet APHELION ENTITY creep, growl and splatter in cavernous menace embodying a yet unidentified monstrosity on this cosmic horror-themed self-titled debut EP. ‘Aphelion Entity‘ threatens to be a weird-ass beating to a pulp to start, shanking the listener with the odd fang to get the poison in our veins but the real trip of their gig comes as we step deeper into the trip resultant and take the ride with ’em on a few choice tangents. Rhythmic exaggerations, nigh progressive ruminations, and spiraling dementia surf upon the hard as nails rhythms they chug-through to set the stage as these folks present an effective balance of mean as hell pounce and heady repercussions on these four tightly writ and performed pieces.

Aphelion Entity formed circa 2021 between members of brutal death crew/Maggot Stomp alum Needlepusher and the fellow behind experimental black/death group Florid Ekstasis and though they’ve named more modern sci-fi themed ‘old school’ inspired death metal groups (i.e. Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold but also re: Inoculation, Cavern Womb) as well as long-standing brutal death acts such as Embryonic Devourment and likely not only for the sake of their general treatment of theme as it is clear that these folks have made some strong investment in the realm of both brutal and technical death metal as fans and musicians. What makes this combination of interests and specialties notable in this particular case is the greater merger of musicianship and ugly, horrified feeling applied by said aptitude wherein we get the sense of skin-crawling dread and death on a massive scale by the conviction of their moving parts, a biomechanical meld of elements which (as suggested) only becomes more engrossing an unreal as we pass through each of the four songs and ~22 minutes on offer.

What is unique and most entertaining about Aphelion Entity‘s work is preceded by a horrifying bluntness, the chug factor is set to a low-gravity bounce as “Extraterrestrial Etiology Of Myocardial Infarction” chops in with its downstroked rhythms orbited by scrawling runs and pinch harmonics eventually dragging that dimension seven tuned guitar tone down into mud the harder they go at it but the result is slow-motion brutal death to start, solid enough riffcraft before they break into their first slipstream around ~2:08 minutes into the opener. The pop of the bass, the upward snaking reach of the solo that cracks off, and the blasted but restful weave of this movement kinda reeks of more recent Afterbirth for a moment, that level of abstraction at least, and at that point my thumbs were up as long as they kept doing that in juxtaposition with hard-chugged mayhem elsewhere.

That’d be the general dynamic of their gig thus far but not the only angle taken on this EP as we find a more technical level of fusion to their blunt edge on “Hypoborean Invader” alongside a serious bass guitar tone banging around the piece, an inverted reveal on (my personal favorite piece) “Surreptitious Cosmogenic Extraction” which I’d enjoyed for its warped-loose drag and blast treatment of pace and carrying through those ‘new old school’ but weirded-out grooves one’d find on a record like ‘Manor of Infinite Forms‘. Otherwise the clincher and the piece that’d rounded things out per my own interest was closer “Enraptured by Ophanim” a song which runs the gamut, showcases all the cool-ass shit that Aphelion Entity do to twist apart their otherwise dark, cavernous and mean sound. Each of these four songs has something different to showcase and though they don’t drastically differentiate the ride through is just challenging enough to entertain the riff-brain mesh with some considerable style relayed.

The opener and the closer are probably the major points of interest here as an introduction though I feel like a full-length from these guys should kinda dip into the more straight forward beastly brutal death side of their tendencies, brazen and repetitive as some of those grooves are it all adds to the cruel next-level slap of their sound and helps create a strong contrast when they do change things up. Overall a fine showing from these folks who’ve developed enough of a foil here that I’m convinced any direction they’d choose to expand from this point would make for an entertaining release. A high recommendation.

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