Review Summary: Finitude, Finality, Final, Death.
Of all the musical fads and hypes to have graced music over the last few decades very little have stayed the path as the death metal genre. Endless growls, fast riffs and the typical bass drum and snare wanker-y have accumulated into more modern renditions of its own being, shaping only where it needs to and never bowing to conformity of an industry so swept up in (re)defining itself. In that regard, Unfathomable Ruination fit the bill. Blending equal measures of Ulcerate, Portal, Death and Suffocation it’s no wonder why the group’s 2016 offering,
Finitude smashes and grinds away its listeners. Take death metal how it is, because when it’s this good, Unfathomable Ruination leave no room for argument.
On a personal level I find the atmospheric brand of death metal more palatable than the acts that fill their albums with nuanced trend setting.
Finitude is a mix of all the great things death metal can actually offer modern music. Simply put, it’s heavy, fast and has enough of that (Ulcerate-inspired) atmosphere to deny most misgivings I would have with an album like this. The guys from Unfathomable Ruination do their work justice by blending their own signature sound into the stereotypical soundscapes that give fans reason to love everything about the new record.
Finitude leaves the listener with a host of options; at the record’s core the outright veracity of the band’s rhythmic base leaves nothing on the shelf. One listen to “The Ephemeral Equation” is enough to last most die-hard death fans with head-banged induced nose bleeds. The sheer tempo of the track outweighs any need to temp a more melodius approach. In fact it’s easier to say that “melody” just isn’t needed here. The combination of groove thrown into tech-death semblance just dismisses the notion that there needs to be an underlying theme of notes. Unfathomable Ruination has made it clear; it’s all in the riff baby. That isn’t to say that these guys can’t string a few notes together. Take “Neutralizer” for example: A short solo spray of notes meets one of the year’s best grooves and culminates into a downright infectious death metal track. The tempo becomes frenetic in places, backed by the virtuosity of all three string swingers. The build-up between sections only adds to the album’s overall replay values for Unfathomable Ruination there’s no hopping aboard a hype train – just straight up and down death.
Overall, Unfathomable Ruination’s 2016 repose is a welcome one for modern death metal fans and while there is so much to look forward to in regards to band’s respecting the past works of heavyweights it’s albums like
Finitude that allow some promise for the future of a genre, even if they are taking some very core values and slapping a modern production on it.
