Tithe are an extreme metal band from the US and this is their second album.
Inverse Rapture is a 29-minute cocktail of foul filth made up of black metal, death metal, sludge, and grindcore. Tithe’s sound is grim and dark, yet wonderfully abrasive within this. Their extreme metal style is hard to pin down, and it’s definitely a hybrid of the abovementioned genres. Blackened sludge with a grindcore edge? Something like that. Hell, I’m just going to call this extreme metal and be done with it.
The songs on Inverse Rapture flare with blackened dissonance and burn with grinding intensity. Moments of bleak sludgy doom infest like plagues, and death metal muscle flexes and batters. There is a sludge metal darkness here that’s intoxicating, especially as it has been corrupted and warped with grinding blackened misery.
The music is ruthless and punishing. Ferocious blast beats and hateful extremity sand your face raw, while mountains of crushing sludge heaviness appear out of the sea of aggression to tower menacingly over your smashed corpse. Inverse Rapture is relentlessly fierce and malevolent, whether this is when it’s being furiously fast, attacking with a sludgy mid-paced assault, or delivering a murderously slow doom beating.
There are some delicious riffs on this release, although the band’s dense sound works just as well when it’s concentrating on creating a wall of guitars or a gloomy mood piece. I’m put in mind of a band like Ilsa or Sunlight’s Bane, if they were infected with apocalyptic black metal and serrated grindcore to the extent that they had mutated into an extreme metal monstrosity.
Whatever it is, Inverse Rapture is a thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable listen, assuming you like being hacked apart by a thousand razors. Tithe have birthed a monster, one that recommend highly for fans of harsh extreme metal.
Wonderbox Metal 