Crawling over corpses in the dark with blades-in-mouth the liers in wait behind Maryland-based crossover death/thrash metal quintet NINTH REALM strike unholy iron on this well-stylized sophomore full-length album. Caught between post-millennium era metalpunk girding and auld extreme metal grime ‘Damnation’s Veil‘ manages to multiply the group’s personage without sapping the broad ouevre they’ve developed over the last several years. The end result is a punishing wheel-turn between thrashing stomp, black/death tinged whirring and a strong heavy metal entrenched core.

Ninth Realm formed back in 2019 between the collegiate duo of drummer Joey Burke and guitarist Liam McMahon with the former’s dark high fantasy world-building theming their work, inciting a blend of new-school crossover thrash, traditional heavy metal and death metal. Their earlier beginnings aren’t fully available online and you’re not missing anything crucial but I would recommend hunting down their debut EP (‘Gates of Tythorin‘, 2019) for clearest contextual framework for what’d come soon after. The two tapes beyond that point were key in presage of their debut LP (‘A Fate Unbroken‘, 2022) but you could just as well jump right to that album as it presents a superior vision and performance beyond the implications of earlier releases. Their attack was very much in line with the lineage of stuff like Iron Age, not far from the metallic hardcore borne toughness of post-Power Trip crossover and the high fantasy bent of High Command b/w harsher vocals here and there. The chunk-thunder of their riffcraft was effective but paled next to the traditional heavy metal framed moments on that debut.

‘Damnation’s Veil‘ fucks with the formula a bit in that you’ll find hairier production values, more thrash and less beatdown readied chug in their attack as Ninth Realm‘s extreme metal interests thrive a bit more on this second pass. The hook-bound weave through opener/title track “Damnation’s Veil” gets us there pretty quick but “Cohorts of the Abyss” is the first piece to fully sprawl into the band’s multi-tiered sub-genre tapped appeal. While I wouldn’t call the band’s work death/thrash proper they’ve hit closer to Nuclear Assault than Cro-Mags in terms of amping their thrash metal tinted approach of the riff this time around. The first several songs here reinforce a new take on the quintet’s original sound but their greater evolution on this album will take a whole-ass full listen to sink in.

“Rituals in Thar’amath” reflects Ninth Realm‘s interest in melodic black/death metal as well as Bolt Thrower-esque grooves per its opening riffs before dodging between the hardcorish push of its verse riffs and more tangled runs later on. Though I’d still point to the trad metal punish of certain Side B standouts as their best angle the band’s dabbling in extreme metal on tracks like this reveal sharp taste which doesn’t appear superficial in application. I’d love to hear more in the vein of that track in particular going forward.

No doubt the title track smoked up front and these folks made a few unholy moves on Side A but I don’t know if I was fully on board with the ride through this album ’til the black-thrashing/speed metal slap of “Wyrd of Strideborne” (also: “Twilight’s Blade”) hit beside the equally ‘epic’ Corrosion of Conformity-stimmed trod of standouts “Beyond the Void” and “Vengeance Unto Rot”. This is the explosive peak of their work here from my point of view and the major highlight of the whole deal. From there the momentum of the second half soldiers on, though their new version of “All Hail Treachery” feels like a step back from all that surrounds it.

Without overlooking the total curation of ‘Damnation’s Veil‘ the elephant in the room is the prime choice of cover art by Wyrmwalk which features a chaotic satanic dwarf-knight brandishing a smoking firebrand atop a hell-steed… and while that might read kinda funny on paper the first impression is both intense and unique enough to characterize Ninth Realm‘s music once again. I’m not sure that these folks efforts have breached all-timer status within the niche but at the moment their work is standing well above most else as every aspect of their gig has been polished or enriched on this second album. A high recommendation.

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