This is the debut album from Italian death metal band Devoid of Thought.
Billed as cosmic death metal for fans of Blood Incantation, Timeghoul, Voivod, Demilich, and Incantation, Devoid of Thought’s music is cavernous and grim. The band’s raw approach is infused with a doom foundation and gifted with a knack for unusual melodic touches and creative flourishes. The music is atmospheric and macabre, while never losing access to the brutality or crushing heaviness that death metal frequently uses so well.
The five tracks on Outer World Graves are atypically lengthy for death metal, (the album lasts 41 minutes), and the band make good use of this time. The songs are filled with ideas and good songwriting. The lead guitars especially seem imbued with a certain dark magic that allows them to unleash all manner of interesting and non-standard melodies and leads, which the rhythm section backs up well. All of the guitar parts are an unusual treat though, and there are a mass of enticing riffs and rhythms.
The music is cleverly composed, and although the band’s material can be quite technical and complex in places, this is never allowed to overshadow the structure or flow of the songs themselves. Devoid of Thought are talented songwriters, and the music frequently draws the listeners into the band’s world of cosmic terror and otherworldly soundscapes.
This is raw, underground death metal that’s been blasted off into the cosmos to mutate and warp for a few thousand years. It has now returned a hideous, shifting, convulsing mass of madness and horror. If that’s not a strong recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Check it out.
Wonderbox Metal 