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| Artwork by Daniel Corchado |
The Chasm's lastet full-length Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm from 2009 is, together with almost their entire discography, available on the Lux Inframundis Productions Bandcamp (Lux Inframundis being the label run by The Chasm mastermind Daniel Corchado). This is amazingly creative death metal with a progressive bent. Each song feels like part of an otherworldly adventure, chaptered by fluid transitions and paragraphed by different time signatures and tempo shifts. Only half the album features vocals. and they are mixed quite low. But this gives them a strange storytelling quality, fitting nicely with that otherworldly vibe.
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| Photo by Carmelo Española. |
Then there's the riffs. Tons of excellent epic riffs. But this is not riff salad, The Chasm are far too meticulous for that. This paragraph by Tyler Munro from Sputnikmusic does a very good job of explaining their modus operandi:
"They often base entire tracks around only a couple of riffs riffs, which, given the length of some of these tracks, is a testament to their talents. A riff will often sneak in, alone, until it repeats with a bass, then drums, then another guitar. From there, the songs tend to play around within themselves; they speed up, bend and distort. This isn't to say the songs are limited to a small number of riffs (in fact it's quite the contrary), merely that they use one or two riffs as their jumping off point."The riffs are anchored by dexterous and very organic sounding drumming and a present bass. And accentuated by subtle synths and effects. The production is clear, with a cold and crisp guitar sound. Entirely without the foibles of modern death metal producers it has a pleasing raw quality, giving you the stellar musicianship in all it's unadorned glory.
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| Photo by Carmelo Española. |
I'm sure it won't take you long to find your own favorite passages of Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm, but let me end the review with sharing a couple of mine: The visceral heavy riffing in the beginning of "Vault to the Voyage", and the goddamn triumphant last half of the epic closer "Arrival to Hopeless Shores". "Arriving … so far from home, but this is the place / Farseeing … sun and moon corroding, this is the place"