I have been immersed in the new Psycroptic album Divine Council now for the past few weeks and played it endlessly, which should state clearly that this new slab of extreme excellence from the Tassie Devils is fucking magnificent! If you caught a glimpse of the first video and opening track from the album Rend Asunder then you are properly prepared for the journey within Divine Council.
The opener is easily my favorite track, simply because of the cohesive brilliance of The Haley Brothers, Joe (some of his finest guitar work for his career IMHO) and Dave with vocalist Jason Peppiatt and bassist Todd Stern, straight up hard hitting, pulsating hypnotic rhythms with fretwork and screaming that makes the mind twitch and head move with unrelenting gracious abandon. It’s proper tech death!
Launching into A Fool’s Errand the pace continues with the furiosity, blending a smattering of traditional thrash cleverly disguised as signature Psycroptic followed by This Shadowed World, we can hear and experience the talents and obvious maturity of the band. Melodically charged with crushing force both tracks which both punishes and rewards the listener.
Enslavement is a thematic tune preparing us for a march into war! A journey of styles which encourages the listener to form an unbreakable wall of death alongside Psycroptic; with speakers turned to eleven blaring out their battle cry, we are brethren in unison ready to destroy those in our path who choose to ignore the plight of our human existence. And here enters the war raging tune of Ashes Of Our Empire, with battle jackets adorned, horns in the air we rush into destructive armageddon with reckless abandon. The anger and brutality rages forth proper now. Psycroptic launch hard here and start to finish “Ashes…” which fails to let the death grip go, yet there are soft quiet harmonious choral notes subtly serenading us in the background which compliment and objectify the multi-faceted, enormous talent this band has.
The Prophets Council intro is a Spanish flamenco style affair, which melds into another hypnotic pulse unassumingly and seamlessly then to a perfectly executed extreme tech death portrait of how incredible, amazing and mature Psycroptic are and have become. “Divine Council” is after all their eighth album (and having been a fan for many, many years this is their finest album to date!) Some other artists with a twenty plus year career have become mediocre at best, yet the arsenal of creative brilliance that lives in abundance within the quartet of Psycroptic fails to dissipate, continuing to become more enhanced and powerful with each new riff written!
Summing up the final three tracks – Awakening is a discordant tune guiding the listener through a myriad of emotions, solemnly calming yet with purposeful aggression realising an imminent end to our ungrateful lives. A Fragile Existence lays the final emotional, passionate stones towards destruction with Exitus crushing us in finality which it would seem only Psycroptic can do!
Start to finish Divine Council is purely a Beautifully Brutal release that without question places Psycroptic at the top tier of metal bands that this country has ever heard.
Divine Council is out now on courtesy of EVP Recordings.
4½ / 5
