Coma Cluster Void - Thoughts From A Stone

2016's Mind Cemeteries was a blistering release. It was full of energy, ideas and you may recall I once compared its twisting, labrynthine take on death metal to the plot of Event Horizon: Death Metal passing through dimensions, only to return changed, inhuman and no longer tethered to the concerns of mere mortals.

This album drew a lot of comparissons to groups such as Gorguts, Deathspell Omega and Ion Dissonance and while that was almost always in effusive praise, it quite possibly started to wear a bit thin.

So we come to the tail end of 2017 and my own framing device has received a tweak. You see, Coma Cluster Void are no longer space travellers happening upon extra-dimensional horrors. They are themselves the horrors spilling in to our universe and giving us a glimpse of the what lurks behind the veil. Clad in black and exploring the further recesses of their experience, CCV are death metal cenobites dismantling and disfiguring the flesh of the genre and sculpting grotesque works of art from its entrails.

To call their new release, Thoughts From A Stone, forward thinking is in many ways a disservice. Its bizarre sonic sprawl doesn't represent foresight in to the development of the genre of tech death or a progression that may be adopted in the years to come. Instead it stands tall as a strange monolith all of its own.

From the opening whipsers of I Breathe an Awakening to the decaying drone the signifies the end of We Are As Low there is nothing typical to be found. Each movement arrives as a fully realised moment in itself while informing whats to come and what came before. Every aching note, every spasming riff strives to shake off easy comparissons. It is hard to speak about specific moments as it is a record that should be digested whole, however whether it is Sculpting This Vision's percussion led descent in to madness or the insidious incantations of Mother, Dreamer that recalls the feel of Lalo Schifrin's rejected score for The Exorcist, there are standout moments to be found throughout the run time.

It's tempting to say that CCV have thrown down the gauntlet to other tech death bands in a year that has already seen really strong releases in the genre from Pyhrron, Artificial Brain and more besides but truthfully Thoughts From A Stone is so distorted and horrifying that it feels apart from such things. It simply just is and feels like it has always been there waiting for a band like Coma Cluster Void to reveal to us.

They have such sights to show you.