Hecatoncheir – Nightmare Utopia (Review)

This is the debut album from Slovakian death metal band Hecatoncheir.

Hecatoncheir play dissonant death metal, with a sharp blackened edge, and an injection of harsh sludge venom. Nightmare Utopia is a 32-minute album of abrasive nastiness, in the best of ways. Fans of bands such as Convulsing, Deathspell Omega, Ingurgitating Oblivion, Nightmarer, and Ulcerate will not want to miss this.

Nightmare Utopia offers a landscape of suffocating darkness for the unwilling and terrified to explore. Its sinister blackened embrace is vicious and serrated, and its fathomless dissonance abyssal, yet not all-encompassing.

Hecatoncheir have a multitude of ways to carve up your bones. Visceral, scathing speed, atmospheric claustrophobia, massive atypical riffs, caustic sludgy groove, thick malevolent worldbuilding, and post-death wanderings are all included in their engaging music, sometimes all within just the one song. Nightmare Utopia is a multifaceted album that presents several different aspects of itself to the listener, simultaneously crushing with weighty distortion and drowning with atmospheric depth. Hecatoncheir succeed in realising vast soundscapes of blackened dissonance that immerse with their detailed brutality and creative violence.

This is a standout release for the style, that’s for sure. Hecatoncheir have a talent for songwriting and delivery, and their music benefits from a character that manages to avoid many dissonant death metal pitfalls. Despite its extremity, it’s not impenetrable, and is frequently allowed to breathe, allowing the oppressive heaviness more impact when it truly unfurls. There is also a dynamic energy here that’s compelling, and drives much of the music forward with an aggressive vigour that is typically lacking in primarily dissonant subgenres. It even feels downright savage in places, which is unusual – but most welcome – for the style.

So, dissonant death metal, with many of the hallmarks of the genre, only blackened, sludgy, creative, and expressive. Yep, Nightmare Utopia really hits the spot, much more than expected.

Very highly recommended indeed.