A third Dantean suite once again finds our protagonist portal’d, transcending to a new upward-shot layer of enlightening chaos and comforting reflection as this fourth full-length album from Milan, Italy-based technical and progressive death metal project COSMIC PUTREFACTION further acknowledges the unknown celestial sea as a realm of infinite experiential possibility, be it mind-scarring dread or overflowing inspiration. One step toward the allure of the horizon allows one additional meters’ depth of field, maddening the inquisitive mind with a new possibility to investigate per each grinding moment of existence. In the case of ‘Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains‘ the apex cannot escape its designation, a goal at the peak persists ’til it becomes a launching point, a fresh wormhole toward infinite corridors of death and dementia-inducing muse. Most of this experience is spent tunneling through, admiring the ghastly cosmic horror depicted in this fast-moving blaze of brutally whipped yet adventurously set death metal yet at this point we can expect the journey and the destination equal profundity as the artist continues to escalate their treatment of cinematically charged forms.

Cosmic Putrefaction became the primary extension of musician, producer and audio engineer Gabriele Gramaglia‘s (Hadit, Turris Eburnea, Vertebra Atlantis, et al.) extreme metal work circa 2018 or so as the remnants of one project became an inspired focal point for his interest in death metal carrying a technical, somewhat brutal and an implied cosmic horror/science fiction theme. While the first LP was comprised of old and new ideas the second LP (‘The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers‘, 2020) would serve as the core representative of the artists vision and each of the two releases since have served as additional chapters in a themed narrative wherein a descent into the circles of Hell receives a dark mirroring into the cosmos. Since I’ve favorably reviewed each of their three LPs prior it should suffice to say I am a huge fan of the band as well as most every project Gramaglia touches, be it via sound design or performance though I’d definitely felt ‘Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones‘ (2022) was a profound escalation of the whole idea and, well, just a great death metal album that’d gotten high marks in review, landed at #29 on my Top 100 Albums of the Year and lead to a fairly in-depth interview as well. So, point being that I’d had very high expectations for this album while also fully trusting the taste/sensibilities and methodology of the artist going forward.

There is a growling, cavernous din to our first barreling steps taken into ‘Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountain‘ that overlays the shimmering, crystalline core of opener “[Entering the Vortex Temporum] Pre-mortem Phosphenes” which necessitates cranking the volume and pressing each ear to the finer details at the burning edge of this growling cave. There is such force to the drumming of returning whipper Giulio Galati (Nero di Marte, ex-Hideous Divinity) that what cinema each piece intends to infuse into our tunneling warp must be equally ridden with volatile depth and this makes for an outright brutal, neck wrenching introduction even when compared to the crush-in of ‘Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones‘. The blood pouring from the bones here still seems to manifest as indirect exaggeration of (the effect of) auld greats, a weirding clobber that invaginates a la Demilich and Timeghoul inspired craft, but I feel like Gramaglia‘s work surpasses descriptions of Gorguts-spawned cloneage and mention of bands like Emperor when it comes to accoutrement as these thoughts become more distant and irrelevant in their core suggestion over time. If anything I’d almost felt like there was a hint of ‘Formulas Fatal to the Flesh‘ feeding the most intense blade-whipped rhythmic threads on “I Should Greet the Inexorable Darkness” save for one “Ye Entrancemperium”-esque riff used for mid-song momentum. At first glance there is no mistaking that this is a Cosmic Putrefaction album either way.

The most remarkable applications of Gramaglia‘s education as a composer had begun to seep into the foreground on parts of his second album under this name but it was ‘Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones‘ that’d set this sense of cinematic progressive metallic loft as a key pivot point for the full listen as well as influencing the greater shape of its narrative. This eventually helps to likewise ease the absolute tech-barrage of layers found on this album as we delve into the mid-point and hit “Hallways Engraved in Aether” where some of the symphonic black/death metal wiles found in Vertebra Atlantis‘ modus are applied to the vernacular specific to Cosmic Putrefaction. Two things become glaring in their importance here for my own taste, the first being a prominent bass guitar tone which thunders and roars through every twist and entanglement of rhythm to great emphasis of the greater momentum built.

This sense of rhythmic heft and haul reaches through the skull in a way that defies the burial and dispossession of the bass guitar which I’ve always found frustrating in the majority of moderne technical death metal brutality. Otherwise the voicing of the leads is just as key to directing the mass of throttled grooves launching this record forth where their tone might reach a “progressive” metal standard of rising unreal shred but not in a sentimental voice, instead meandering upward to a point of surreal rise which is more akin to a composed synthesizer solo modulated into screaming rise. Some of these techniques are applied throughout the full listen, others are specific to the narrative passing from “Hallways Engraved into Aether” through the booming highlight of “Swirling Madness, Supernal Ordeal” this being one of my favorite parts of the album for its racing, tormented persistence of attack. To my ear this is as close to something like Limbonic Art level cinema and something like third gen Immolation-esque resonance at once, especially when considering the brain worming sci-fi drift at the end of the former song, a transcendent moment that burns hotter with every second it cycles.

There are points of respite in our ride through the vortex presented by the first six songs on ‘Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains‘ yet as was the case with the previous album (as well as the second Vertebra Atlantis record) there is a conclusion, a statement and a revelation to be found at the end of the journey which I feel is just as profound in its evocation as an album-defining moment and a ‘point’ to arrive upon in terms of both narrative and the progressive rock level arc of the album as a whole. That isn’t to say that the title track/closer “Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains” attempts to sum the entire records events but acts as both an exciting natural peak and epilogue where clean vocals from the indomitable Giorgio Trombino (Bottomless, Assumption, et al.) greet the ever-climbing spire of this song, a first of three levels of cloudy transcendental climb presented within the song. This is such an effective narrative device, a change of scenery in revelation and a nuclear level song in its own right, that I’d almost begin to wonder why each side/half of the album didn’t implement these sort of vocals to create further dimension. The destination is the answer but the thought still lingered as I brain-scanned for any thought left unturned by the experience.

It should not be left unsaid that how rare it is that a musician with such practiced skill on-record also bears such a complete, well-rounded grasp of /cool-ass music worth listening to/ and not only for the level of thrilling flair attached but the actual machinations of the music bearing a point of view and compositional aptitudes beyond the norm. That is to say that G.G.‘s work has a sincere level of melancholic duress and chaotic darkness attached to its depictions of planetoid-level occurrences, sure, but there is both taste and sound musical application underpinning said action which reaches an certain elusive next-level feeling. The fact that this type of conception and execution is repeatable, elaborately built for effect and scalable, shouldn’t be taken for granted as the depth of ‘Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains‘ continues to reveal itself as an experience; This praise of course extends to the production values and curation of artwork here as each continue the traditions built on past records while finding key points of differentiation in conveying this next chapter. I’d particularly enjoyed the Doré-esque depiction of the vortex atop the peak and the fracturing reality below in the cover artwork from Khaos Diktator both for the dark landscape and the eye-worming color palette used, lending the album a cold yet immensely dark first impression.

The one thing I’d wanted in taking a step beyond ‘Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones‘ was a return to some of the wide-open spaces, sprawling yet damaging drift found on Cosmic Putrefaction‘s second album and instead of feeding that regressive thought ‘Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains‘ builds a bridge to Gramaglia‘s interest in progressive metal (see: “[Exiting the Vortex Temporum] The Clearing Path” when the moment calls for outer spaces and this of course turns out to be the better choice, lending heady character which suits their weave between and beyond the afterburner-bursting rush felt otherwise. From my point of view the whole of this album taken in over the course of several weeks reads as additional mastery of the full album format, consideration for not only the gnarl of the moment-by-moment minutiae and the framework it adorns but also the effect of the music itself upon those of us who’ve more than a gnat’s attention span. It is easily one of the best death metal albums of 2024 and only reinforces the wealth of potential for this project to continue to delve and distort the technical and atmospheric values available to death metal. A highest possible recommendation.

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