This is the debut album from Absent in Body, an international doom/post-metal band.
Featuring current and ex-members of Amenra, Neurosis, and Sepultura, Plague God gives us 36 minutes of sludgy industrial post-metal to become lost in and horrified by.
The music is an apocalyptic mix of harrowing atmosphere, industrial groove, thick sludge distortion, and daemonic vocals. Sometimes heavy, sometimes not, it is always enveloping and engaging. And slow. Absent in Body’s End of Days is in no hurry to reach its conclusion. The music gradually and inexorably moves unhurriedly forward, washing away all feelings and emotions apart from negative, hopeless ones. Or almost all, at least.
This is an album of atmosphere and mood, all of it grim, yet with glimmers of light here and there amidst the darkness. The songs craft bleak soundscapes that simultaneously crush down and uplift, almost as if the act of destruction is a rebirth of sorts. The band’s oppressive and potent strain of doomy post-metal and industrial sludge is suffocating, yet there’s still room enough to scream in frustrated, despairing hope.
Plague God is a record that fans of Amenra and Neurosis are bound to naturally gravitate towards. It’s good that they do too, as Absent in Body have produced an immersive journey into industrialised darkness for them to happily endure. It is also a firmly recommended listen for any fan of slow, atmospheric heavy music though – Body Void, Vile Creature, Primitive Man, Bismuth, Chrch, Keeper, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 