"The Path Unseen" Leads to Vessel of Iniquity's Inhuman Black/Death Metal (Early Track Stream)

Some music feels like it doesn’t want to be listened to. Not in the sense that it’s actively designed to be bad, or unlistenable — instead, albums like Vessel of Iniquity‘s upcoming The Path Unseen surge out of speakers with noticeable disdain, as if they resent being played. On the United Kingdom band’s fifth full-length, the unsettling layers that pour forth are clearly not content with existing in our limited little realm. The result is perhaps the closest we can come, in our mundane world, to music actually being haunted: The Path Unseen is plagued by whispers and ghastly crackling noise that, although obviously part of band mastermind S.P. White’s vision for the album, still trigger goosebumps and a creeping sense of being watched.

So, The Path Unseen seethes and observes, but—and this is important to note—it also riffs. On the title track, which we’re premiering below, Vessel of Iniquity executes extra-slow,extra-mean death metal riffs with industrial, serrated guitar tones, each one sawing through the record’s dense, eerie production like a rusty knife through irradiated butter. Listen below and embrace the fascinating antagonism of “The Path Unseen”:

…

…

The Path Unseen releases October 7th via Sentient Ruin Laboratories.