Diabolic Oath – Oracular Hexations (Review)

This is the second album from US black/death metal band Diabolic Oath.

After enjoying Diabolic Oath’s Divinations split with Aberration not so long ago, I’m both surprised and pleased that Oracular Hexations has come along so quickly. Clocking in at 36 minutes, it’s a violent, barbaric mix of brutal black metal and hideous death metal.

As extreme metal goes this is grim, harsh, and evil. It seethes with contempt and displays a venomous passion for destruction. Each of the six songs is a hymn to ruination, and provides pitch-black devastation in the form of brutal sonic assaults. The music may be violent and ferocious, but it also channels an abyssal otherworldly malignancy that’s almost tangible. Oracular Hexations carries with it a menacing atmosphere that feels corrosive and contagious. Coupled with the music’s heart of bleeding cruelty and a fierce intensity that you can nearly reach out and touch, this is an album that’s lethally effective.

These warped creations are well-crafted, and manifest as a curious version of bestial war metal. All of the familiar black/death ingredients are here, just corrupted and mutated into musical malevolence that has a dark flavour of its own. Diabolic Oath have forced their will on the style, and Oracular Hexations belongs to them alone. This is one of the reasons that I really like this album – while recognisably of the subgenre, it feels like something a bit different within it. It has a raw hostility that’s compelling, but hidden depths pull you back again and again to explore every last drop of malefic distortion and foul utterance of the triple vocal attack. Plus, it’s just downright vicious.

This really is top tier stuff from Diabolic Oath.

Very highly recommended.