The shadowed, ever-swarming stream of consciousness inhabited by the countless long-dead cannot be sustained without rituals of commune and remembrance amongst the living. The efforts of those who’d engage in traditions which activate and hail the restless damned back to life for the sake of wisdom are virtuous, reverent far beyond the typical attention-deficit scrounging and hissing most’d engage today. The labyrinthine eternally abysm-bound spiraling of Helsinki, Finland-based solo death metal project DESECRESY and their ‘old school’ death metal loom weaves together for this purpose year after year, to grasp the timeless nature of Death and figure their own transcendental path through. On this ninth and no less righteous full-length album, ‘The Secret of Death‘, their efforts are set most squarely upon divination of the unknown, the unheard yet they’ve sustained signature in every sense. Taking yet another carefully informed step into greater capability allows their work to sustain self-built identity and clear purpose alike, making for a familiar yet no less principled entry into their long-running history.

For their first four albums beyond forming in 2009 Desecresy were a duo featuring ex-Slugathor co-founder Tommi Grönqvist alongside vocalist Jarno Nurmi (Serpent Ascending, ex-Nerlich) and from that point Grönqvist has iterated upon that general idea entirely on his own, going as far as to perform all instruments/vocals, produce/engineer each record, and illustrate their artwork, etc. I’ve been a fan from the early days counting their work among the uptick in strong ‘old school’ Finnish death acts borne of the late 2000’s (re: Krypts, Vorum, et al.) even going as far as to name their third and fourth albums among my favorites of each year (esp. ‘Stoic Death‘ ca. 2015). Any shorthand description of their work should include a self-driven do it yourself ethos in the context of foundational works from Bolt Thrower, Demigod and to a lesser degree Incantation in creating their own subterranean shade of atmospheric classicist death metal.

Desecresy do not view death metal as a broken wheel in the sense that the incremental change pursued between each of their nine major releases should suggest that their own ideation of chasmic, mid-paced, and surreal underground sounds was realized early on. Rather than step out of line we’ve seen the artist develop skills with regard for pacing, rhythmic techniques, and more recently growing interest in the atmospheric possibilities offered by synthesizer/keyboards. The last three or so records’ve touched upon these points alongside an increase in average song length beyond ‘Towards Nebulae‘ (2019) where ~5-6 minute on pieces became more demanding without rallying further density of ideas. ‘Deserted Realms‘ (2023) was less the peak of this idyll and moreso the collected result of it wherein the dynamic of the full listen enforced a broader vision of the ouevre developed over the years.

Granted most any casual listener set more than a few minutes deep in any Desecresy album will lose their bearings and become swallowed by the Eldritch Finndeath constant the hypnotic rhythmic signature of the band continues to enforce. Set somewhere in between the eerie leads and uneven stalk of early Finnish death and mid-to-late 90’s Bolt Thrower‘s rhythmic engine Grönqvist‘s signature riffcraft carries on with its dark, death-divining contributions which one could pinpoint even on mid-2000’s Slugathor records. That is to say that collapsing into the graven, chunking gloom of opener “Gorge of the Dead” should be immediately familiar for returning listeners and the great majority of Side A reinforces an unbent ideal. Production values are more spacious, drum patternation bears some additional finesse but overall the hypnotic delve available to the artist is untarnished in its iteration.

“Crypthymn” embodies continued efforts to create atmospheric assemblage without interrupting the pure death metal purpose of Desecresy where percussion and foreboding, celestially summoned ambiance hums and growls as the riffs arrive. This heightened level of adornment is not so prominent that ‘The Secret of Death‘ appears overworked but rather less bare-bones in presentation and accompanies smaller but potentially more impactful features such as the unreal bass guitar break (~1:29 minutes in) which introduces a hideously dark tone and asserts the odd-metered step of the piece. Again, to the passersby this might appear as a small detail but to anyone fully drenched in years of fandom it is the realization of steadied tectonic “progress” and capability (vision overall) taking place over geologic time.

Side B is where the immersion earned deepens into the cacophonic layer (re: “Ancient Timbre of Demise”) and ‘The Secret of Death‘ begins to aim for more varietal, experimental movement a la “Rotting Ghouls” where the aforementioned focus on irregular meter and polyrhythmic resonances meets up with grinding, unpredictive tension. This is done with similar patternation as before, again all very familiar authorship from song-to-song, yet it lands as a lower level of Desecresy‘s default underdark-torn sound. The listener should’ve experienced either the joy or the dilemma of taking on the band’s discography where their general musical language is idiosyncratic, “limited” by some accounts, yet enforces itself through attrition. Those heading in hoping for broader change won’t have found it, not even on the deeper wandering of the second half, and those seeking this one-of-a-kind sound will find the next downward-set step into their abysm.

The broadest stroke taken outside the norm on the running order should be obvious enough as synth is readily incorporated into the intro for album closer “Vanishing Existence”, a feat which forces the halt of the rhythm guitar’s milling dominance long enough to allow the cosmic horror of their approach to establish. While some listeners might reach this point dying for something entirely different in Desecresy‘s sound I appreciate how these sorts of ideas have been steadily integrated over the last two or so records from the band. Though those refinements might appear comparatively meager to some they’ve added to the general character of ‘The Secret of Death‘ and the search for commune with the dead that it purports.

The grand takeaway here is that Desecresy still sound like themselves and ‘The Secret of Death‘ reinforces the trend of incremental refinement applied to each of the band’s nine major releases. The argument to make here from the point of view of an enduring fan is that what makes this fellowe’s work unique remains thunderous, resonant with singular purpose to an uncanny degree, and this remains steeling for my own taste considering the alternative will never know itself this well, or burn out trying. A high recommendation.

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