It’s an easy bet, but if you’re skulking around Decibel’s corner of the internet, we’re going to make the assumption you’re the type of person who enjoys a good sonic head kicking more often than most. The list of bands and albums able to satiate the need to have your face kicked in via extreme music can easily make multiple end-to-end passes across our flat earth and shows no sign of abating. Add Ottawa’s Deformatory and their newest and third album, Inverse of the Unseen Horizon to that list. Taking cues from the tech-est and brutal-est of brutal technical death metal, the duo from Canada’s capital have offered up a shining gut punch that sings, screams, wallops, growls and races in the same vein as genre masterclass mainstays as Immolation, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal and Origin. Plus, their name fucking rules!
Consisting of guitarist/vocalist Charlie Leduc and drummer Neil Grandy, Deformatory originally formed in 2010 and have delivered a variety of EPs, splits, full-lengths and various lineup permutations. Inversion of the Unseen Horizon is the band’s first as a duo — with help from producer Topon [Fuck the Facts] Das behind the desk, Jon [Cryptopsy] Levasseur on guitar and Paul [www.gerrardart.com] Gerrard at the easel — and judging by the volley of musical spiked napalm on offer, working as a duo agrees with Leduc and Grandy. Says the band:
“Everything going into our newest album has been calculated and executed by design; from the concept to the artwork, from the music to the hidden codes waiting to be deciphered; this is an offering of madness for those who want it; a relentless death metal experience from beginning to end. Inversion of the Unseen Horizon ties off the concept series that we have been crafting since our debut album In The Wake of Pestilence, released in 2013. It’s the end of a sentence, it seems. It feels great being at the release stage; we can finally let it go, drift off into the musical universe and become receptive to the new carnage that is to come.”
In addition to the sonic sledgehammer, the album picks a conceptual nerve with its exploration, interpretation and exposition of horror. Because I can hardly tell you the difference between Clive Barker and Clive Burr, I’ll just quote from the promo material and reveal the three-part, epic track listing as evidence there’s some deep thematic thought going on between the chainsaw blueprint riffing, space age solos, guttural vocalisation and blast beat barrage. Says their bio:
“The lyrical and fictional story concepts behind the new record were in part inspired by Clive Barker’s book The Scarlet Gospels and guitarist/vocalist Charlie Leduc’s own interpretation and expansion of the Hellraiser mythos. It’s also a continuation of the story from the band’s 2016 release, Malediction where the band dived into the origin of the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, who was an Angel possessed by Savael, a truly maleficent entity that consumed Lucifer’s corpse and became the embodiment of who we call Satan. Savael, however, was not an anomaly, nor was he a single omnipotent being, working on his own volition.
“In fact, he was but a mere droid in a complex hierarchy of vile entities, known as The Ce’naxors. They are crafted and programmed to infiltrate distant planets and societies, to infect their purity with darkness, and ensure their carefully orchestrated annihilation is carried out. Savael was dispatched from their planet, which lies in the Fifth Dimension, called Cyru’xil in order to fulfil their cosmic design for Earth. Explored in three chapters, the album explores the origins of The Ce’naxors and the ominous landscape of their home planet, Cyru’xil, revealing their Arkitekt’s grand scheme for multiversal decimation and atomical consumption. The Unseen Horizon is their planet, their beings and their plan.The Inversion intimates it coming into view, from an otherwise hidden perspective.”
Below, we present a stream of the album for you to test your ear and brain power with:
Track Listing:
Chapter I – INCEPTION: THE CYRU’XILEAN NEXUS
1. Within The Astral Abscess (5:20)
2. Behold, The Apex of Decay (4:36)
3. Enginieering The Wvrmhorde (4:39)
Chapter II – INCURSION: THE PROTOTYPAL ESCHATON
4. Summoning The Cosmic Devourer (7:13)
5. Masticated By An Infinite Shadow (4:30)
6. In The Embervoid Where Dead Stars Reign (3:52)
Chapter III – INVERSION: THE HORIZONTAL REFLECTION
7. Deciphering The Archetype (3:53)
8. Impaled Upon The Carrionspire (5:01) (Classical guitar and solos by Jon Levasseur (ex-Cryptopsy))
9. Beyond The Abhorrence (4:13)
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