A thorn and corpse lined tunneling through the rapid-set devolution of an empire goaded by austerity-centric sabotage this second full-length album from New York, New York-based brutal death metal quartet THÆTAS scribbles, pecks and hammers through its abstract representation of dark days in the present tense. In the process of revealing both spiritual and mechanistic illness ‘The Irredeemable Age‘ necessarily contorts the form unto deeper-breathing and harder struck moments alike, feats which slink between era-agnostic timbre and technique with admirable fluidity. The effect is immersive yet brief, mania-inducing yet kinda chilled, just enough of a tonally cross-eyed vision to reasonably portray chaos and dismay within its dense and damaging thread.

Thætas formed back in 2015 by way of folks you’ll recognize from Reeking Aura and Aberrated aiming for a form of skronking, slam-adjacent avant-garde brutal death on their first demo (‘Thætas‘, 2016). Packed with ideas and all manner of oddly needled-out ideas there was no doubt the original quartet’d managed a compelling mash-up of surreal and congested muse within those four songs. This’d tentatively morphed into some kind of bizarro slam (arthouse-slam?) once they’d expanded to a quintet for their split with Haagenti (2017) which’d felt more like improvisation than practiced action in how it’d slipped and slid through its six minute sliming. While that material was inferior to their demo it was clear they were working from a foundation of brutal death unto fluid avant-creation.

It was fitting then that the band’s 2017 recorded Maggot Stomp flushed debut LP (‘Shrines to Absurdity‘, 2020) would be described as a crossing of Defeated Sanity‘s irregularly set brutal verve with later Gorguts (and the ilk) per an embiggening of the thread they’d been pulling since inception. The effect was modern in most every sense but never in such a clinical way that their interest in 90’s death metal had been washed away. When I’d gotten my hands on it I’d described the core virtue of the experience: “Much of the draw with ‘Shrines to Absurdity’ beyond sheer manic heaviness comes by way of sauntering, diabolically brutal pieces that swerve on the edge of collapse.” where it was clear their core idea was to push the technical limits of the form beyond the “Suffo-and” station afforded most avant-garde brutal death but not without crafting rhythmically interesting excess. This new album more-or-less rebalances that core conception.

Upholding exacting parity with the format of ‘Shrines to Absurdity‘ this follow up arrives bitten off in same-sized chunks, ~3 minute brutal death pieces melted and morphed somewhat in the tradition of Afterbirth, Dripping and to a lesser degree earlier Wormed. The first impression for existing fandom should rightfully be a less “weird for the sake of it”, shoulders-hiked take which leans into a slight abstraction of Suffocation-esque thrashing brutality with spastic dissonance in their step but the headier drift of their craft quickly smears the lens. For all of the comparisons one could make to Thætas‘ work at a glance they differentiate by removing some of the right-brained tech fancier rigidity and ultra-blast movement (re: first Origin album) of their debut and instead focus on a more organic take, finesse over muscle in many cases. This lends a varietal step through this quickly pulsed out spin, a ~half hour where ideas arrive, distort and collapse in inventive ways throughout.

Opener “Dhukha” lays this changeling course in fast-moving chameleonic spread as the hardcorish step of their chugs mount toward ‘Cranial Impalement‘-esque riffcraft, spiraling out into chaotic refrain a few times on the way back to brutality. Scrambling n squealing leads are featured with prominence, drums still find their hyper-kicked peaks but the big doomed-out brutal death thud at the end of this piece dominates Thætas‘ entrance. Most of the song on ‘The Irredeemable Age‘ play out in similar reveal via slickly shifting pace as they are given foundation via a damaging riff being being melted into distempered form. You’ll find fewer pinch harmonic fed riffs as the previous LP outright but “The End of History” should stand out for including a few in its central run-on phrasing. Otherwise warped shredding, deathgrinding tension and a sense of disarray ensure each song carries some manner of sparking highlight.

With each step taken away from the outset ‘The Irredeemable Age‘ moves deeper into weirding disarray, peaking somewhere between “For Hope the Devoid” and the title track (“The Irredeemable Age”) with the latter featuring as their biggest extension of the ‘From Wisdom to Hate‘ dynamic fostered herein. The riffs that float and/or moments that escape the hammer are necessarily brief, bound by Thætas‘ persistent need to mosh and grind, but this naturally eases over the course leaving Side B as the destination for what pings in mind on the way there. “Daytime Lantern” is the final proof of this dynamic but closer “Digital Locusts” fully makes good on the greater beast within its elaboration of what “Dhukha” promised at the outset, bringing the album’s exploration into its satisfyingly circular odd-brutal wrench.

‘The Irredeemable Age‘ never truly steps outside of the body, holding fast upon the tension of post-millennial (sometimes slamming) brutal death insistence, but when Thætas do phase out of form the effect is briefly intoxicating. As the off-cuts start to stack up the thread remains just off-kilter enough to entertain without erasing the strictures of brutal death depravity and grime (re: “Stretched Paradox“) and this is a sweet spot which never feels overtly conservative in its motioning. The result is an experience which levitates between the surreal and the ruthless, a middle-ground which hinges on the uncertainty created and… almost to the point of thematic semblance. The more straight forward stuff balances the high density freakery available and neither angle exists more than a few seconds distance from the other, making for a record that is easy to tunnel into and crash out within. A high recommendation.

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