Wrapped in flesh and chittering out angst-riddled doxa at peak sentience (and unto imagined creators) the crowing of concern amongst the damned grows to an ear-itching nonsensical din as the coming downfall settles into human meta-awareness. Cross-eyed and gasping beneath the realization of their own vulnerability when faced with nature’s uncontrollable forces the communal braying of tragic animal noise slowly wanes toward defeat, barely reaching the viper-ear’d cunning of Austin, Texas-based blackened droning avant-noise rock quartet LABYRINTHINE HEIRS who’re hissing and choking on their forked-tongue as they heap on their unique brand of predatory scorn. Carrying a black-blooded curse throughout this unexpected, difficult to define debut full-length album they’d insist the Parmenidean barrier to divine knowledge runs both ways, “gods” cannot know the plight of the individual by design and we could never perceive the true divine by sheer ineptitude of the senses, as they float ‘Labyrinthine Heirs‘ past via a uniquely specialized fusion. This slow-stabbed horror show posits where anti-rock/post-hardcore punk impressionism and malefic black metal intellect might make for bedfellows and the result is a ghastly wave of hissed and hammered subversion.

Labyrinthine Heirs probably formed in the last few years between folks from various Austin-based circles including bassist Bryan Camphire (Phase IV, ex-Bloody Panda) and guitarist Samuel Kang (Cathexis) though I’ve no real intel gathered on the other fellowes involved. They’d actually formed this band with a specific fusion in mind and one that is spiritually and compositionally fairly similar to that of Phase IV‘s self-titled record from 2022 (which I’d spent countless hours with) in terms of applying extreme metal vocals to slow-chopped noise rock inspired rhythms creating a medium to explore surrealistic/avant-garde black metal inspired aesthetics/sounds at a slow-to-mid paced step. Some love for Virus is suggested and I would say fans of black/doom metal groups such as Head of the Demon and experimental madmen in Lugubrum and Reveal! should at least find a general ballpark in mind. Otherwise ‘Labyrinthine Heirs‘ is a bolt from the blue, I’ve absolutely no other information beyond its sudden impact and their suggested intent.

As it turns out Labyrinthine Heirs‘ sound is fairly straight forward in its glom of distant and seemingly irrelevant sub-genre, once their gig “clicks” in mind it won’t appear so unfathomable and it become easy to imagine how they could potentially expand upon both extremes represented. Between five fairly long and repetitious pieces of similar tack and tamber here I’d argue a strong point of immersion overtakes any real sensation of variation at face value, leaving ‘Labyrinthine Heirs‘ feeling tentative in its combination yet entirely consistent throughout. This (again) will have me referencing Phase IV just one more time for the sake of the core rhythmic device, a hypnotized shuffle, being similar in its map but of course the guitarist and the band’s collective inspiration pulls from extreme metal manifests unto an different-but-similar result.

Right off the bat Labyrinthine Heirs‘ ravine of free-associated Biblical gore-gasming, eroto-intestinal fling we’re off to a slightly obnoxious start. The child’s (?) voice that opens the album via “Brick Refusers Quartered” was an immediate fast-forward on my part every single time as it adds nothing to the song. Likewise the choking noises from vocalist Evan Sadler within the last minute or so of “The Loop of Human Flesh Told in Perpetuity” took me out of it just as the song’d reached peak drone. Getting in the zone with this record isn’t a grand challenge per its consistent rhythmic pull but some of the smaller details were grating up front; Replacing the howling, numbed and brazen tradition of noise rock vocals with a spoken-rasped black metal inspired gasp (instead of howling, numbed and brazen black metal vocals) kinda works in terms of retaining readable enunciation of the lyrics yet it provides a chilled-over sensation which avoids the emotion, or unhinged personality one’d expect from a noise rock/post-hardcore crossover. The repeated exclamation of “Again and again and again” on “The Conceited Determination of Nimrod” is a good example of Sadler‘s tone flattening a potential point of expression while feeding the droning-and-diving dynamic of the song with its skittering math-metallic bustle and the change up groove at the end ~8:50 minutes in.

Every point of interest on ‘Labyrinthine Heirs‘ makes some manner of concession to allow its mechanisms to gel in-machine rather than exacerbate the potential for raw, unhinged, or explosive meander on either side of the fence ‘o fusion. The cold and warped slow-step down into their melting abyss is a vibe in and of itself, so, Labyrinthine Heirs approach something of a signature per the strict tromping momentum of their rhythms. “Yaldabaoth Gored to Blindness” probably comes the closest to drawing outside of those lines per its blackened outburst ~3:24 minutes in, working that intensity brilliantly next to the bass guitar groove that anchors the mad dance of the song and its quickened pace. The cryptid bodied gait of the band begins to show its stripes, figure out its strange voice near the end but the long corridors of snarling tension endured getting there certainly won’t be for everyone.

As a fan of both late 80’s/early 90’s noise rock and underground extreme metal in general I could both appreciate the amalgamation of ultra-specific niche here and also felt compelled to peck at it from many different angles, ultimately enjoying the experiment and the rhythmic exercise involved. There is clear potential here to admire and muse over and to some degree that ends up being nearly as interesting as sitting with the album on a regular/repeated basis. While ‘Labyrinthine Heirs‘ isn’t going to be pleasure listening for all but the most deranged, the fixated directive of this debut is yet distinct and enjoyable for its strange innervation divined between two irreverent mutant forms. A moderately high recommendation.

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