Plague Widow- Plague WidowSlathered in suffering and darkness, Plage Widow's self titled debut EP is a powerful conceptual force, because while sounding thoroughly modern and extremely brutal, it is also rich and dense with atmosphere and musical complexity. Spawned from the sunny pits of Sacramento, California(My family is from there, which says something about the cities population...), Plague Widow have given us a small window into the future of Extreme Metal with this brilliant, caustic little noise abortion of an EP, one where the lines between modern brutality and old-school intensity are blurred completely.
Plague Widow is at it's heart a very modern sounding, ultra fast Deathgrind album with a strong Brutal Death Metal influence. From the moment the blistering drums and deep guttural growls of "Womb" kick in, the Circle of Dead Children and Deeds of Flesh influence becomes apparent. But as Plague Widow progresses, we see an attention to detail and atmosphere grow and become more enveloping. These disparate elements begin to twist and contort, forming a vortex of desolation few acts can match. "Void" blisters with elements of Adversarial and Portal, before ending on a breakdown Suffocation wish they could have written, while "Operating the Segmental Apparatus" is mixes in a heavy dose of atmospheric Black Metal between spouts of Deathgrind flame. Smart use of samples and atmospheric noise, like the intro to "Assimilated Subconscious," just adds to the bleak tension and monolithic blackness.
In just over fifteen minutes, Plague Widow delivers more death and Satan than most bands entire discography. One would be hard-pressed to find a more uncompromisingly dark and blasphemous slab of Grindcore and Death Metal than this masterful and dense piece of musical Sadism. Plague Widow have stumbled upon a sound that is as important as it is deadly: one that takes the decayed, evil spirit of the past and infuses it into the powerful, muscular frame of the present. This new creation, this new affront to God and Nature itself, could become unstoppable. For now, this small but bloody atrocity is a more than terrifying harbinger of things to come.
Rating: 9.5/10
Plague Widow is at it's heart a very modern sounding, ultra fast Deathgrind album with a strong Brutal Death Metal influence. From the moment the blistering drums and deep guttural growls of "Womb" kick in, the Circle of Dead Children and Deeds of Flesh influence becomes apparent. But as Plague Widow progresses, we see an attention to detail and atmosphere grow and become more enveloping. These disparate elements begin to twist and contort, forming a vortex of desolation few acts can match. "Void" blisters with elements of Adversarial and Portal, before ending on a breakdown Suffocation wish they could have written, while "Operating the Segmental Apparatus" is mixes in a heavy dose of atmospheric Black Metal between spouts of Deathgrind flame. Smart use of samples and atmospheric noise, like the intro to "Assimilated Subconscious," just adds to the bleak tension and monolithic blackness.
In just over fifteen minutes, Plague Widow delivers more death and Satan than most bands entire discography. One would be hard-pressed to find a more uncompromisingly dark and blasphemous slab of Grindcore and Death Metal than this masterful and dense piece of musical Sadism. Plague Widow have stumbled upon a sound that is as important as it is deadly: one that takes the decayed, evil spirit of the past and infuses it into the powerful, muscular frame of the present. This new creation, this new affront to God and Nature itself, could become unstoppable. For now, this small but bloody atrocity is a more than terrifying harbinger of things to come.
Rating: 9.5/10
