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Wormed’s 2003 debut PlanisphÆrium is one of those Demilich-style cult objects—a really, really weird one-off death metal album that a certain set of people absolutely love. I was never sold on it. The “scientific br00tality from outer space!!!” concept does nothing for me (from them or from anyone, really), and the music itself pursued extreme heaviness to the exclusion of virtually every other enjoyable quality. It is good for death metal to be crushing, but extremity that does not serve a song is of little use.
Exodromos, Wormed’s new record, puts the space br00tality to a purpose. The muddiness and directionless compositions are gone; only the wackadoo science fiction themes and the poopmouthed gutturals remain from the PlanisphÆrium days. Wormed is playing cutting-edge technical death metal now, complete with actual dynamics and guitar work that is both adventurously noisy and adventurously melodic—a rare combination. I’m reminded at times of Gigan, another space-themed death metal band, but with fewer effects pedals and more muscle.
Fellow slamsmiths Devourment and Defeated Sanity also cleaned up their signature sounds considerably on their 2013 releases, but Wormed has delivered the most exciting release of the three by far. Brutal death metal purists will likely reject all of them. Pearls before swine.
Listen to “Stellar Depopulation” from Exodromos below. It comes out on March 26th via Willowtip.
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Solid.
They haven’t even debuted any of my favorite tunes from the record.
I don’t get it, the previously revealed tracks seemed less clean and more dense, while this is quite lacking in structure and heaviness. Some of the riffs sound like they came from a pianfully generic slam band. Then again it’s just the first few impressions, maybe it’ll grow on me. They raised the bar quite high with Quasineutrality, though, so it shouldn’t be that bitchy of me. Whatever.
A great article. I commend the editor for being vocal on his opinion of Wormed’s concept. While the theme may not be for everyone, it humbly reminds me that just like space, metal is vast in its content,and some themes are not for everyone.