We featured the Massachusetts-based death metal five piece Garroted on our Demo:listen column nearly four years ago. Calcemia, L.A.’s premiere prog death newcomers, we featured back in 2017. Now we’r psyched to feature both bands and their new independently released split EP, Transcending the Esoteric Plane.
Both sides of this split come at you equally mind-blowing and body-thrashing. Each member from both bands brings so much talent and capability to this recording that despite being only four songs long, this EP feels and sounds immense. Should you make it through the whole thing with all your limbs and mental faculties intact, make sure you pick up a copy of the split on CD and pro-tape.
CALCEMIA
“For those who are new listeners, we are Calcemia, and like our brothers in Garroted, we play a very twisted and ripping strain of death metal, inspired by classic acts such as Ripping Corpse, Coroner, and Brutality. After releasing our debut EP, The Unburning Flame, we immediately had some more material written. We had gone from a four piece to a five piece, and wanted to put out something that shows how that changed our sound. These songs are a foray into a more intense and fast-paced style, with a much greater amount of lead guitar work.
“By the time we geared up to tour with Disembowel and Skulls in 2018, both of our songs for this split were written. Our intent was to release them on a split, and Garroted could not be a better fit to Calcemia’s sound. A few months after the tour, in late 2018, we began to track the songs ourselves at our rehearsal space. Our aim was to have a more raw sound than our EP, and I think it shows. In terms of future plans, we are currently writing a full length.”
GARROTED
“Transcending the Esoteric Plane is Garroted’s most refined and most challenging release yet. These songs came to fruition at the end of 2018 and were completed by early 2019. Recording for this release was finished by mid-2019 with our long time friend and colleague Sean Hart. Our intent with these songs is to take you on a sojourn through the depths of your own subconscious and explore the fine line that distinguishes dreams from reality. Compositions plod on and explode respectively as needed to fit this vision. Guitar solos from myself and Jerry range from screeching atonal noise to soaring ethereal liquidity to full on harmonized Shrapnel Records lava as we see necessary song to song. KJ’s bass is louder and more present than ever, bellowing forth like Godzilla wading through downtown Tokyo. Him and Yianni showcase some of their most advanced playing here, working like a steam engine to deliver crushing rhythms with relentless force. Dan’s vocal arrangements are at their most demented and otherworldly here. Never afraid to challenge convention, it was a delight seeing these tales come together; being delivered with such twisted narration and diction. With these hymns of demented perversion and absolute annihilation, we at the Garroted camp wish to offer one universal truth: PURE RIPPING DEATH. Enjoy!”
Support the underground.
Get Transcending the Esoteric Plane on CD and cassette from
Garroted and Calcemia.
