lista zespołów Black Death Ectovoid Fractured in the Timeless Abyss

Who said that Polish labels only signed Polish bands? True, they have already much work to do at home because of the seemingly limitless number of local acts, but “newcomers” like Hellthrasher Productions have diversified their roster from the start and with Alabama, US-based Ectovoid, they’ve invited yet another quality act in their ranks.

Born from the ashes of Bloated Carcass, the three members of Ectovoid play occult old-school death metal. Now, some of you may be scared or bored a little bit because, yes, lately, there's been quite an avalanche of such acts in the vein of Krypts, Cryptborn, Morbus Chron, etc, etc. While some five years ago, people were complaining that Brutal Death Metal bands were flooding the scene, now NWOSDM has taken the same path. Every label, be it small, medium or big, wants its own “nu” OSDM act. And that, if you ask me, implies a lot of shitty acts being signed here and there.

Fortunately for you and me, Ectovoid falls in the category of the better bands out there. Their first obvious influence is Autopsy. Very much so. Which is welcome, because many of the newer bands have been trying to copy either early Incantation or the Swedeath sound. Sure, you’ll hear some Incantation as well in Ectovoid’s sound as they like to pound their way through hell in a similar fashion but the Autopsy flavor gives their music a fresh twist on events: it’s catchier, it’s dirtier and it adds a little madness to this otherwise very dark music. Maybe it's the Autopsy thing, but you’ll also find a few resemblances here and there with Death’s earlier releases (namely Scream Bloody Gore and to a certain extent Leprosy).

A colleague of mine was mentioning Ectovoid’s close resemblance to Vasaeleth. Only the former adds more brutal parts than the latter and does not rely as much on atmospheres. And though I partly agree with him, I like to think of the US power trio as a sped up version of Necros Christos. It probably helps that the vocalists of both bands have almost the same voice, but musically also the resemblance goes on as their take on “primitive” and yet catchy Death Metal is rather characteristic. Except the Germans could smoke a little less weed if they’d want to offer the extra brutality found in Ectovoid.

Some bad points? Well, yeah, there’s always some, I guess, though for a debut, it’s worth recommending to anyone into Old-School Death Metal. I believe the main problem of Fractured in the Timeless Abyss is somehow linearity. Though all nine tracks are rather good, there is not really anything that differentiates one from another and in the end, though the whole play goes rather smoothly, you'll find those 40 minutes a bit long which kind of shortens the replay value. Obviously, I wasn't expecting Heavy Metal anthems a la Running Wild but some extra diversity would have been welcome.

Overall, despite the last “negative” point, I’d strongly recommend this to anyone into dark and evil Death Metal; and though it's not going to be the next Onward to Golgotha it certainly has great tracks and the band shows they have some untapped potential. And since it’s becoming harder and harder to separate the wheat from the chaff, rest assured that you’d make a solid and worthwhile buy here.