This is the latest EP from Boreworm, a progressive death metal band from the US.
Sometimes you just know you have to review a release that you come across purely due to the album artwork alone; this is one such release. The cover just grabbed my attention straight away, so I knew I had to listen and absorb the musical contents as soon as I could.
Diving in, I discovered they describe themselves as insectile death metal, have an over-arching science-fiction theme to their music and have a guest guitar solo from a member of Rivers of Nihil on the EP’s title track. Well there we go then.
There’s 22 minutes of music here, and Boreworm reveal themselves to be a very interesting proposition. They play their style of death metal with some modern and progressive twists, alongside plenty of technicality to satisfy those that like some impressive playing.
These tracks take aspects of melodic, atmospheric and post-metal influences too, resulting in music that can enthral and captivate as well as batter and bruise. Yes, there’s more than enough brutality on offer here, but there’s a whole lot more too. Post-metal resplendence and heart-breaking melodies war with walls of crushing guitars and breakneck speed.
At their heart Boreworm just want to strangle the life out of you and insert sharp objects into your broken, bleeding body. However, on top of these rather base urges is a sophistication that you don’t commonly see in death metal. Sometimes this is hidden beneath a muscularly brutal veneer, while at others it’s allowed the space to breathe and roam free, revealing musicians that want to stretch and challenge themselves and their listeners.
At the moment these different aspects of Boreworm are fused together in somewhat of a truce, resulting in songs that do manage to largely hit the spot nicely. However, I predict, (hopefully), that in the future the band will fully realise these different facets of their personality in even better and more productive ways, and at that point Boreworm will become a real force to be reckoned with.
For now, though, we have Entomophobia, and very, very good it is too.
Enjoy.
Wonderbox Metal 