ninehertz

This is something of a gruesome release, so bogged down by its own filth it often trips over from its core sludge into swampy death metal. For all its gunge and misery, it makes for a highly enjoyable listen.

Finis Hominis are from São Paulo and are several releases in, but De Natura Horroris is their longest and most accomplished to date. Alucinações Hipnopômpicas sets the scene, whereby a loose and swinging doom start is cemented by the dual vocals, one which sounds like a broken air con unit, the other a creepy sludge staple croak. It is rotten sludge hurling itself around, unprecise and raw, just as it should be. It picks up pace a little, almost ending up in the neighbourhoods of death-doom, but not for long, returning to an even more lethargic sloping gait than before.

Their sludge credentials are done no harm with a song entitled Moloch and its lumbering, unsteady gait of cumbersome doom and filth-ridden slow-tread stomp, where after the death metal influences begin to be heard more prominently. The raw production suits their styles perfectly, and on Sorumbatico they settle into a groove that is noticeably OSDM, a head-nodding satisfyingly gruesome riff then pushing it more towards old school death-doom of Autopsy and the likes.

The final track, Alucinações Hipnagógicas has pulsating Portal-esque guitars to begin although then doesn’t go all demented death metal, instead hanging in the soundwaves. A slow rumbling thunder spreads wide with the band at the epicentre – a wonderfully realised premise, a terraforming atmospheric builder through its own applied dissonance. It should be uncomforting but instead I find myself transfixed, zoning out in the good way, as if it were some deep psych jam.

This is a band growing into their sound and developing their own interpretations and niches. De Natura Horroris is filthy, raw and dense, yes – it absolutely should be – but it is also confident and progressive too, which makes for a highly enjoyable record.