Profound Lore is developing a reputation for cutting edge metal in both black and death spheres, and it is the latter that concerns us today. Indeed, Antediluvian have been equated to labelmates Portal and Mitochondrion with a regularity that could be described as knee-jerk where it not for the clear elements of truth in the comparison. Whist this record is somewhat more recognisably death metal than the avant-garde horrors of the former, there are clear commonalities with the latter, their fellow Canadians. Through the Cervix of Hawwah is a similarly foreboding take on death metal, inflected with artsily abstract compositional ideas and skull-scraping dissonance. Those commonalities only go so far, though. This album’s feet remain more firmly implanted in old school dankness, at different points equally reminiscent of early Pestilence, Asphyx or Autopsy. In short, it is a deeply ugly record, both sourly aggressive but also esoteric, and every bit as foully primitive as the band name and artwork would suggest.

The music shifts awkwardly, from sections of bitter, almost black metal blasting into slow and formless passages of abrasive noise, and back out again. And between these poles there are myriad dark shades of oblique and chaotic sound, as with the turbulent, ever-shifting Intuitus Mortuus or the closer Erect Reflection. What Antediluvian do particularly well is latch onto short patterns of tones and hammer them into the listener’s brain via their ears: I mean really pound them in, so that imprints are left in mush and blood on each side of their heads. These fragmented riffs can be twisted and oblique, as with the abovementioned Intuitus Mortuus, which scrunches up into momentary flashes of silence like a deadpan musical joke. Or they can brutally simple, like on Scions of Ha Nachash, whose thudding drum beat and salivating riff sometimes seem devoid of any kind of time feel other than their own spasming spiral. In the distance, reverb-heavy percussive thunder claps resonate above this breathlessly dense tirade, giving the album a near-hysterical feel.

And so whilst this is imbued with a frantic, dissonant quality that could almost evoke Deathspell Omega, it delivers it with an ambiance that is pure death metal. From Seraphic Embrace is a case in point. It quickly turns into a whirling chaos, but it begins with a wonderfully dungeon-like melodic intro which reminds me of the plebeian dirt of Autopsy. Gomorrah Entity also begins with an intensely creepy atmosphere of clunking percussion and rumbling chords. It builds towards a truly horrid guitar solo; essentially a shapeless, discordant wail like a mewling creature. This is death metal at its best: in turns drenched in dank atmosphere and possessed by insane fury. Closer Erect Reflection seems to sum it up, feinting at winding down into a closing sump based around droning guitar feedback and tribalistic drumming, but suddenly accelerating once again into the perplexing chaos of the last two minutes. Bizarre and frightening.