metaportal

Wormed Tosses Tech-Death Into a "Metaportal," Violates Fundamental Laws of Physics

metaportal

It’s relatively easy to wax and spew about a tech-death band like Wormed, one just so absurdly extreme and sensationally heavy that even the band’s mere pretense alone outguns entire albums from its genre peers. So, let me try to scale it back a bit by saying the most “negative” thing first: the new Wormed Metaportal EP sounds bang-on like modern Wormed, just how you’d expect it to sound. This is to say that there are no surprises on this release, other than the surprise inherent in just hearing new Wormed, which is a great surprise indeed anyway. And honestly, including me, most Wormed fans will be entirely pleased with this. These four Krighsu-esque songs amount to exactly what we wanted right after finishing our first listen of Krighsu in the first place. More of that, please.

But while the waves of tech-death pounding our shores over the last few years have left some residual foam — some longer-lasting reinforcement to tech-death’s prog influences, for instance — much of that material ends up departing as quickly as it arrived, leaving minimal trace. This is to say: tech-death is not easy to excel in, in a lasting way, technical instrumental skills notwithstanding. What makes Wormed special is that they’ve always exuded timelessness and everlastingness in the arrangement of their extremely precise cacophony, weaving supreme degrees of songwriting and style into a tech-death meshwork sewn with raw brutality. It’s out of the formula comes heaviness — not a moment before the musical equation is solved — imbuing their music’s visceral savagery with the sort of delicacy practiced by brain surgeons. Listening to Wormed is both an exercise by your mind and one of your mind, a duality few tech-bands are able to even touch.

The Metaportal EP succeeds where tech-death still lets us down, at that all-important intersection of sterile technicality and human interface. Wormed have nailed that balance again on the Metaportal EP through a methodology entirely their own. It may share a lot with Krighsu, but not to any real detriment; if anything, this EP offers the most condensed and concentrated snapshot of the band to date, perfectly befitting their music’s constant sense of immediacy. To wit, Wormed have engineered the most effective mind-rearranger that works in 20 minutes or less. Befuddling, but bombastic and beautiful. Check out the full stream below; let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The Metaportal EP releases tomorrow via Season of Mist.

wormed

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