Convulsing – Perdurance (Review)

This is the third album from Convulsing, a solo death metal band from Australia.

I haven’t caught up with Convulsing since their immense 2017 split with Siberian Hell Sounds, so we’re well overdue. Perdurance lasts 48 minutes, (56 with the bonus Porcupine Tree cover), and is a monster of avant-garde death metal.

The talented artist behind Convulsing has taken dissonant, technical, progressive, atmospheric, and avant-garde elements, gathered them closely and tightly, and then absorbed them into a work of harshly compelling experimental death metal darkness. A twitching, slithering, heaving mass of extreme metallic depth and heaviness, Perdurance is a superlative record of immersive layers and multifaceted potency.

There’s brutality here, and plenty of it, but Perdurance is primarily an album of contemplative heaviness. This is music that may be visceral and raw in many ways, yet is focused on emotional weight, expressive extremity, and introspective might. The style of the music won’t have a broad appeal, but that’s not the point. Instead, Convulsing’s art is about meaning and feeling, and all of the songs on Perdurance are impactful in their scope, effectiveness, and worthwhile presence. This is music that when you listen to it for the first time you instantly know it’s an atypical, standout release, which makes the subsequent listens all the better and richer as you slowly get to know its warped ways and labyrinthine charms.

Flawlessly and technically rendered with a sound and delivery that’s perfectly judged for the style, Perdurance is a colossally strong album. It avoids the pitfalls that can befall the output of many ostensibly similar acts, and delivers an album that’s capable of many things. From spacious breathing space, to crushing claustrophobia, to scathing harsh hyperaggression, to a warm creeping darkness that just wants to embrace you, and much more, Perdurance is packed to the brim full of engaging and absorbing textures and flavours.

Perdurance offers an intricately woven journey into dynamic, expressive music that is crafted with devoted skill and attention to detail. There is a focused clarity of delivery here that I find utterly compelling. Couple this with the sheer abyssal – yet intimate – depth of the music, and you have a firm winner.

Essential listening.