I may have never reviewed them (mostly because it's impossible to translate room-filling floods of ejaculate into text), but Hour of Penance from 2008-2014 was pretty much untouchable. I think Regicide was a bit of a step down, but the stretch from The Vile Conception to Sedition was fucking phenomenal. Since they've started to fall off and become less ridiculously insane, I and many other fans have been looking for a new source to scratch the itch that they used to scratch so fucking well. Enter Hideous Divinity, who have been around for a little while and even contain some former members of Hour of Penance, but only truly came into form for me on their 2017 outing, Adveniens. [1]
Hideous Divinity is kind of like the Italian version of Misery Index: the band is a collaboration of a few scorned Hour of Penance members that arguably rivals the quality of their parent band. I actually really enjoyed Regicide, but I seem to be in the minority there; for the most part, the consensus seems to be that the band has taken a slight decline in quality since they released two back-to-back monstrosities with The Vile Conception and Paradogma. Fear not, though: with its relentless drumming and sinister vibe, Adveniens sounds more like the logical successor to Paradogma than anything else I’ve heard so far. [2]
This album is just flat out fucking nuts. There is barely a nanosecond where the drums aren't propelling the band to the front of the pack basically all by themselves. In terms of insane tech death, they don't really focus a whole lot on sheer technicality. You're not going to find endless noodly sweep runs and bloodly oodlebloodle bass diddlings here. Instead the focus on basically playing Suffocation on fast forward. Seriously, this is some of the most obnoxiously fast and ripping death metal on the market today, interspersed with brutal breakdowns that don't snap your neck as much as shake you violently. Even when the guitars slow down and focus on some crushing chugs instead of the rampant tremolo abuse that takes up a good portion of the album, the drummer is still fucking losing his mind. It's very clearly the highlight of the album and that works for me. I love this style of full forward lunacy in tech death that Italy seems to pump out regularly. [1]
Let’s get the main thing out of the way: this is fast. Really, really fast. It might just be the production pushing every hit to the forefront, but even during the breakdowns, the drummer’s got at least one of his limbs going at a ridiculous speed. If you don’t like the sound of that, you should probably stop reading right now. Fortunately, I can’t get enough of it, so I’ve got no issues. This doesn’t quite have Marduk levels of blasturbation, there’s a bit more dynamic going on than that; I would compare the approach to Adversarial in the way that there’s a lot of different things going on even when the pace of the drumming is consistently frantic (check out “When Flesh Unfolds” to see what I mean). They’re also comparable to the Canadian deathmongers in that their music adds a slight dash of black metal influence to give melody to a death metal base; perhaps that could be attributed to the band’s roots in Norway, but who knows. All I know is that’s it’s a satisfying mix that turns what could have been a monotonous album into one that’s got catchy moments on every track. The rare time Hideous Divinity tries something different, the results are quite successful; the closing of “Embodiment of Chaos” in particular is downright atmospheric. [2]
Despite the single minded focus on indiscriminate obliteration, Adveniens manages to be shockingly dynamic as well. There are multiple atmospheric parts acting as the outro for several songs, and almost nothing falls into a standard song structure. Two of the three opening tracks are marathon lengths for tech death, and they throw enough riffs at you to keep it from becoming stale. This is where Krisiun failed on The Great Execution, another very busy death metal album that focused on long songs. The difference is that the Brazilians desperately needed to trim the fat as most of the tracks on that album felt overblown and drawn out, whereas the Italians here go for total sensory overload and hit the sweet spot. Despite the constant blasting and drill-wristed ripping guitars, there is a slathering of sinister atmosphere that keeps the whole thing cohesive and varied. It just feels evil, like how Hour of Penance was peddling blasphemy so intense that I was pretty sure I was unconsecrating every holy building in a few mile radius every time I listened to Paradogma. Adveniens gives the same vibe. This is furious and deadly, and it just oozes malevolence with every 110 degree left turn on the journey. Like most albums in this style, it's hard to pinpoint individual songs to highlight, but it rides at such a consistently high plateau that it doesn't really matter. Hideous Divinity has effectively replaced my beloved Hour of Penance as the tech death band to lead us into the future, and they're definitely up to the challenge. [1]
Hideous Divinity’s primary purpose is clearly to pummel you in a bloody pulp, but the array of influences in the riffs on Adveniens is a little bit more diverse than contemporaries such as, say, Antropofagus. There’s some occasional attempts to push the envelope in terms of genre-bending (the guitarist mentioned a Sulphur Aeon influence in an interview, which I can see to some extent), but for this most part this stays grounded in the fast-and-thick style of Italian death metal the band is known for. I appreciate how this still sounds fresh and engaging even though the band didn’t really go through any major overhauls in sound, nor try any dumb new tricks. Aside from the drumming, I can’t really point out a component of the bands that stands out, but the rest of the band play off of the rhythms flawlessly and make the music much greater than the sum of its parts. If you were a little bit underwhelmed by Hour of Penance’s most recent release and haven’t been a fan of Fleshgod Apocalypse since the Mafia EP, then this is the album for you. [2]
Tracks
- Ages Die
- Sub Specie Aeternitatis
- Passages
- Angel of Revolution
- Feeding Off the Blind
- When Flesh Unfolds
- Messianica
- Future in Red
- Embodiment of Chaos
If you like it, please buy their original CD or Digital Album on official website/store.
Hideous Divinity - Adveniens (2017)
These reviews are written by Bastard Head and Rape The Dead on Metallum.
Bastard Head, God Is Gross, www.metal-archives.com[1]
Bastard Head, Hideous Divinity - Adveniens, lairofthebastard.blogspot.com
Rape The Dead, Ow My Insides, www.metal-archives.com[2]
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