Review Summary: A soul-crushing wrecking ball of brutality.
Sadly underrated and overlooked, Poland's Lost Soul deliver here their heaviest and most cohesive material; an album so heavy it'll open a hellvoid underneath you and swallow you whole.
Chaostream possesses just the right amounts of technicality and brutality, without losing itself in the usual tech death wankery or succumbing to the sheer atonality of brutal death. Every instrument works in tandem to deliver a near seamless wall of sound. Perhaps the highlight are the drums, performed with stylish grandeur by Adam Sierga, who has sadly left the band since
Chaostream was released. The album is absolutely riddled with blastbeats, yet they are always tastefully placed and executed, never really allowing for monotony to set in. Thunderous rolls rumble across the juggernaut riffage, punctuated by cymbal crashes like cracks of lightning.
Said riffs are tightly-controlled, monolithic slabs of noise impacting your face like a wrecking ball. Perfectly tuned and with thick, killer production, their intensity almost never lets up. There are even some balls-to-the-wall solos thrown into the mix in practically every song. Overall, the sound brings to mind a blend of Immolation, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Ulcerate, stirred in with a hefty dose of that patented Polish Death Metal sound (think Vader, Hate, Decapitated et al). At times, the tempo slows and the pace switches to a sludgy, almost doom-like crawl - most notably on standout track Christian Meat. It allows a welcome (if slight) change of scenery, and stops the album from becoming
too monotonous. The lyrics (unsurprisingly) bear a heavy anti-religious theme, bellowed and occasionally shrieked with primal, bestial vigour by guitarist/vocalist Jacek Grecki.
It's hard for me to come up with downsides to this album. It can drag the first few listens. It's definitely not the most original or ground-breaking metal you're likely to have heard. In fact, it may come off as a little generic initially. But if you let
Chaostream sink it's claws into your skin, you may just find yourself a new favourite.
Recommended Tracks:
-Christian Meat
-Shameful Race
-The Word Of Sin
-The Hidden Law
-The Birth Of Babalon
