Review Summary: Oppression of life.
There are few subjects that intrigue death metal's grimy roots than darkness. For every tech-death and deathcore band that meanders further off from the fuzzy path, there is a new underground act to revitalize and restore the sound of the rotting. Surgical production values are exchanged for ravaged distortion and crunchy heft, hyperspeed noodling falls before hateful low-fret freneticisms, and the act of pulling arbitrary phraseology out of medical dictionaries is replaced with the disturbing cries of the cursed. While the mainstream has long since removed any resemblance of "death" from death metal, plenty of bands are rising in this vacancy's stead. Voidspawn are one such band, with their debut EP
Pyrrhic forming a brilliantly accurate summation of Gorguts-imbued technical death metal.
Voidspawn achieve a good deal within the three short tracks on
Pyrrhic. All three are deeply steeped within the same dreary territory. Rugged trappings of Blood Incantation, atonal sensibilities of Ulcerate, and the stench of the underground through Ellorsith are all evident over the EP's runtime. Yet, even with a sound so definable, the band's navigation of old school and doom elements propel
Pyrrhic further into the deep than any release of such transience could venture. Ease of definability may come as the band's largest shortcoming, as there is very little here that is indicative of a truly unique sound. What is here, however, is an expertly concise platter of death metal's dismal attitudes. Self-description is often convoluted, but
Pyrrhic is most definitely a cold manifestation of darkness.
