You would think that by having formed in 2013, Italy’s Ekpyrosis would be able to absolutely nail their first label release. Considering their obvious influences and genre they’ve decided to emulate, their debut seems really stilted and just not really well executed.
Granted, I don’t play guitar or am in an old school death metal band, but I have heard enough albums of this style (as it is one of my preferred listening pleasures) to have a pretty good concept for what is average and better-than-average.
I feel that the recording process for “Asphyxiating Devotion” may have been a little rushed because a few of the time changes and overall timing of the album is off in a few spots. Granted again that this is a young and fledgling band, I am sure with time and honing of various aspects of their style and abilities, Ekpyrosis’ sophomore album will be much more refined than this. I guess my go to for debut albums of this ilk is “Winds of Creation” by Decapitated or Abramelin’s self-titled debut. And this is because we are talking about a band that cites ‘old school’ as their main influences, so it would be remiss of me to not consider this when reviewing.
Now that my critical brain has got that out of the way, “Asphyxiating Devotion” is unrelenting from start to finish. Nothing groundbreaking and nothing lacking, it is a solid 40-minutes of old school death metal delivered as you would expect it. Unfortunately, I found myself losing interest going into the second half of the album as I just didn’t feel the pull of what I was listening to and found it very repetitive and lacklustre. Nothing kept me wanting to immerse myself in “Asphyxiating Devotion” from beginning to end.
“Axphyxiating Devotion” – out 23/01/17 through Memento Mori
3/5 ⭐⭐⭐
