In times of brazen corruption, folks being culled from the streets, and overflowing social engineered dementia the correct reaction in the minds of Washington D.C.-based grinding, brutally shot death metal quartet BLOOD MONOLITH is a combination of defiance and nihil. Their debut full-length album, ‘The Calling of Fire‘, is dense with primal subterfuge on the level of classic death metal and grindcore finessed extremism, girded with spasms of brutal death metal meter and grindcore-fueled interruptus in achieving their goal of freshly damning extremes apropos of the times.

Blood Monolith formed circa 2023 by way of the increasingly prolific Shelby Lermo after exiting his decade long tenure in death metal band Vastum. The goal of the band was stated in pursuit of a sound that was “even uglier, weirder, and more aggressive” as he’d resituated in the D.C. area, soon taking in members of Genocide Pact, Goetia, and Undeath to realize that goal. Each of those folks (alongside Lermo) also brings some grindcore related past-and-present with them so it’d be safe to assume anything a drummer like Aidan Tydings-Lynch (Brain Tourniquet, Deliriant Nerve) touches is going to slap around and push past any notion of pure and plain death metal regardless. The result is technically death metal/grindcore in its basal hybridization on ‘The Calling of Fire‘, a debut which bears a brutal death metallic directness which is unafraid of maximized hardcore punk structures. Death metal is the anchored voice of the band here at their outset but all roads lead across the tracks, toward shoulder hiking tension and a brutal, gnashing-at-the-air attack… but not quite to the extreme that you’ll find on Lermo‘s late 80’s grindcore instilled project Human Corpse Abuse, this is a very different beast primarily centered around the riff, the slapping groove of it all.

Opener “Trepanation Worm” gets the brutal edge of Blood Monolith‘s attack first and up front, a cracking and grooving (earlier) Cryptopsy-esque reel into their ever-shifting gearbox of riff obsessed movement. The change in movement around ~45 seconds into this three and a half minute song is our first hit of their grinding whip with Tydings-Lynch‘s drumming catching my ear first and the thrashing break (and ripping Insanity feeling lead) ~1:45 minutes in solidifying my interest in where ‘The Calling of Fire‘ was headed. I’m always looking for a big, hard hit introduction to any death metal album in this case they’ve put a fitting punisher up front for a characterizing blow. Most of this ~28 minute album album follows suit in terms of holding that momentum, or at least maintains the same density, or, rate of fire for riff ideas and bigger death metal grooves.

The thrashing, performative maul of mid-90’s death metal is just one part of Blood Monolith‘s genetic expression here and you’ll hear it outright in a few pieces (“The Owl in Daylight”, esp.) but from what I gather Lermo and co-guitarist Tommy Wall (Undeath‘s bassist) shared interest in more elite standouts in ‘modern’ death metal naming Defeated Sanity, Dead Congregation (via the press release, so, with a grain of salt) to create a sense of intended impact when lining up their riffcraft. This manifests as a groove-heavy record overall (re: Suffo-level kicker “Prayer to Crom“) a deathgrind slapper in some sense but not necessarily a grindcore record with death metal riffing in the way that you’ll find on say the most recent album from labelmates Caustic Wound. Either way they pack a lot into these songs, a fastidious and dense yet unhindered deployment that is impressive on the first listen but likely too much to absorb within just one jet through.

The rolling toms on “Viscera Vobiscum”, the smoking lead guitars on “The Owl in Daylight”, the ambient intro to “Apparatus” and outro to “Cleansing”… ‘The Calling of Fire’ might appear brutish as a mean-assed grinding death metal stomp but the level of detail these folks have sussed out within the span of about a year’s worth of work is remarkable per an introductory release. The turning point for the full listen naturally comes on Side B as they reach for some weirding n’ rocking deathgrind moves via the aforementioned “Cleansing” and then my favorite piece on the album, “Pyroklesis”, which carries some of those ‘Formulas Fatal to the Flesh‘ warped movements at the core of its ruckus. It isn’t the first piece on here to capitalize upon the swerving fundament of Morbid Angel‘s late 90’s warp (see: the end of “Slaughter Garden”) but probably the most obvious to my ear. It was the right time for a peaking moment on the full listen and remains the song I’m most stoked to return to as the whole album builds up to one fiery endpoint. Otherwise the song carries more interest than that brief moment of likeness and features some wretched and rasped vocal accompaniment I’d like to have heard more of.

While many musicians today find one acceptable standard for production and sound design then apply it uniformly to all of their projects out of convenience Blood Monolith‘s sound feels both classic in its fairly pure standard achieved yet specifically geared to their style. The drum sound in particular where it has a mean brutal death clap to it but not the goofy lo-fi death-hop step you find in meme core groups today, there is a nice sense of presence that accentuates the amount of fills and finesse applied to these songs. This comes by way of Lermo working with Matt Michel who’d engineered the latest from Antichrist Siege Machine and Left Cross and is given mastering via the maestro Adam Tucker @ Signaturetone Recordings. My first impression was that they were aiming for something in the late 90’s underground death metal headspace, a non-artificial approach to extremity and brutality but with far more clarity than that era typically brought. These folks are pros and all that but there is still enough of an edge here that their taste and fandom of death metal (among other niches) should still speak to death metal enjoyers.

I’d appreciated that Blood Monolith don’t necessarily sound like everyone else’s gear today and that goes for their aesthetic choices, too, as the circa ’81 cover art by Nick Blinko of Rudimentary Peni infamy isn’t an obvious or safe choice. Blinko‘s work is dense with imagery and an affected hand which suits both the level of detail in this work and the frustrated lyrical focus of the record. I’ve no knowledge of any overarching theme beyond defiance of our tech-bro apocalyptic overlords and the endtime cull of corporate oppression but even that thought stands out as part of the ‘punks making death metal’ feel of their curation here. Though there is some potential for big personality here the big draw for my own taste is the directness of Blood Monolith‘s craft, no ulterior angle beyond the fist in face, which’d consistently pulled me back in for countless rounds with ‘The Calling of Fire‘. We could still consider it foundational work but achieved at a well above-average standard nonetheless. A high recommendation.

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