Scourging the putrid throne and defiling all angelic hides softened by their own contemptuous reign Los Angeles, California-based death metal quartet INSINERATEHYMN storm the marbled halls of sanctitude with a brutally blasphemic rally via this stabbed-through third full-length album. ‘Irreverence of the Divine‘ spills ancient blood in the name of proper ‘old school’ death metal guided by a practiced killing hand and via unhinged minds, attuning their focus toward malevolent grooves and increasing brutality. Still a pure death metal band raining down riff-after-riff under total possession of the old cult these folks’ve outdone their previous work here with a bigger record, cutting into meander territory without losing the feral edge carried through each of their releases thus far.

Insineratehymn officially formed circa 2016 with several members having notably taken part in the formative years of blackened death metal band Transcendence. From the start they’d set out to create their own version of pure ‘old school’ death metal and managed a damned solid debut LP (‘A Moment in a Vision‘, 2018) taking key inspiration from the gnarled movement of Scandinavian death metal (first Hypocrisy LP, Sentenced‘s debut, Nirvana 2002 tapes, et al.), the caco-daemonic thrashing rush of early Deicide, and the brutal strokes from Monstrosity b/w east coast USDM of similar caliber. You’d never mistake their sound past-and-present for anything but pure underground 90’s death metal, I’d specifically pull the line drawn back to the pre-1995 crews that’d been on the cusp of brutal death, aimed to kill via vile, mean-assed riff-obsessed stuff.

The band picked up the pace, locked in the kit a bit more and kicked my head in with their sophomore full-length album (‘Disembodied‘, 2022), carrying a bigger bass guitar tone and lingering on their more sinister and creeping riffs for a sound I’d touted for its cross between USDM ex-thrasher ideals and the gnarl of Finndeath/Swedeath. Blasts got heavier, vocals got even more disgusted and low, and their riffs had found a an even better balance between blunt violence and brained-together detail that I’d found myself returning to quite a few times beyond release. Their whole discography is ace, death metal in a style that invokes the peak of the sub-genre’s earnest development, so on my end expectations were reasonably high for this third LP even if they’d simply iterated on that same idea I’d have been all in on more of their gig.

A sombre acoustic guitar intro (re: “Revelations…”) will never not ping the part of my brain programmed by endless rolls through ‘Death After Death‘ and that ends up being the right feeling heading into the thrashing-loose and rasping death metal grooves that bruise up when the opener/title track (“Irreverence of the Divine”) hits. Insineratehymn‘s edges are frantic, their leads are wilding through most of the song and this time around the attack of their riffs has some fresh killing blow to every strike. If we consider how much harder bands like Skeletal Remains and Laceration are going at present this opener launches a different angle of attack while carrying no less conviction, cruising up toward an even more rattled clobber on “Cosmic Aberrations” just beyond. Doubling up on all fronts the bigger, broader-faced render of ‘Irreverence of the Divine‘ reveals some finer details from the start, such as the sometimes-distorted bass tones and maniac rasped interjections lend a poisoned tip to their zombified pre-‘Repulsive Conception‘ era Broken Hope level of attack. For my own taste this one of the better songs from Insineratehymn to date and a huge first impression made.

From that point the bar has been set and every piece beyond that pillar tasks itself with hustling back up to that same level of compulsory violence. One of my favorite songs on the album comes right at the end of Side A with “Sempiternal Suicide” which is easily the most Deicide-esque hand applied on the full listen but they’ve created a far more exaggerative form which’d recalled ‘Butchered at Birth‘ as much as it did some of the mid-90’s stuff out of Poland (see: Hate‘s ‘Daemon Qui Fecit Terram‘) where the vocals in particular stood out to me. Around ~1:39 minutes in the vocals take on a huge line that matches the intensity of the riff they’re crushing through. It is rad to see a death metal band flexing something cool as shit in terms of performance like this, switching up the vocals and hitting a more brutal standard in the process.

The majority of Side B is as characteristically focused on the attack as one’d expect from Insineratehymn, hammered through in search of bigger grooves to insert in between verses. Their greatest success on the second half is probably “Covenant of the Virtuous” for my own taste, I’d appreciated the main riff they’d lead with and the crawling and kicking double-bass drumming that roots it in a sort of quasi-Morbid Angel feeling roll mid-song. Insineratehymn‘s guitarists are locked in on the rhythms at that point and we do get those more explosive/wailing leads less often on some of the later songs, trading a focus onto longer form mid-paced riff threads (“Visage of the Infinite”.) And that is the major impact of ‘Irreverence of the Divine‘ a pretty damned straight forward shot force of bigger grooves, even tighter playing, and their crazed thrashing vision of classic death metal. They cut things off before they’ve exhausted this crispier, deadlier production values are worn on and keep each song about the riff without falling into overly repetitious variants.

Again, I’m not sure Insineratehymn needed to improve upon their previous work to have impressed me here but there’s no way anyone who’d enjoyed ‘Disembodied‘ wouldn’t see ‘Irreverence of the Divine‘ as an even better record from the band. The whole deal hits like they’ve hunkered down and taken the time to develop more of their own feel and focus within the ‘old school’ death metal inspired realm, building some of their own tics and traits upon the successes of their previous work. For my own taste this comes down to an even better handle of classic death metal riffcraft achieving an even nastier more directly squared attack and their performances naturally follow suit. Of course sharper production values help and brilliant cover art (via Edgar Roldan) only adds to the overall appeal of this album. Call it a defining release or a most refined creation yet the whole package presented by ‘Irreverence of the Divine‘ uniformly hits a well above-average standard for classicist death metal permutation, lending itself to countless full listens on my part. A very high recommendation.

NOTE: Vinyl version releases (via Rotted Life Records) later on June 20th, 2025.

INSINERATEHYMN ‘Irreverence of the Divine’

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