Band – Ignominy
Album – Imminent Collapse
Country of Origin – Canada
Genre – Death Metal
Release Date – March 10, 2023
Label – Transcending Obscurity Records
Author – Hayduke X
Visceral is creeping death, a slow-burning monster of a track that invades your psyche with its insidious horror. Jangly, angular riffs slither across ominous bass. The off-kilter hit selection on the drum kit keeps you guessing where the next attack will come from. The vocals glow hot, ready to ignite into flame. Press play, then crawl below for my full review.
Ignominy has been stalking through the darkness since 2013, but Imminent Collapse marks their debut full length. Prior to this release the Quebecois quartet have released two singles and an EP, enough to draw the notice of Transcending Obscurity Records, a label which has become excellent at helping bands, well, transcend obscurity. The strength of Imminent Collapse and the reach of the label should make it a no-brainer that Ignominy will gain some wider notice.
For this particular release, Ignominy is composed of Marc-Antoine Lazure on drums, Alexandre Préfontaine on bass, Philippe Gariépy on guitar, and Alexandre Desroches on vocals. Reading the tea leaves at Metal Archives (sometimes a difficult task), it seems that all are original members, except Préfontaine, who appears with the band for the first time on this album. They all sound like a well-oiled machine together, including Préfontaine.
Imminent Collapse is a sinuous creature, taking torturous turns where you expect it to go straight, and ramping into a full blown attack where you expect another twist. Ignominy follow a pattern of dissonant weirdness popularized by bands like Ulcerate and provincial brethren Gorguts, who in turn grew seeds planted by pioneers like Demilich and Death. They present a grim, unpleasant, yet incredibly engaging album.
An atmosphere of impossibilities, which are fully seen in only the briefest flashes, before the unsettling atmosphere sinks back down is painted with a variety of tools. Lazure is released to gallop or creep in ways that don’t always make immediate sense. Préfontaine rumbles with an ominous ebb and flow, like tidal waves in the blackest of night time waters. The riffs Gariépy produces sink their claws in, often in savagely contorted contrast to the work of the rhythm team. Overall this, Desroches bellows in earnest rage.
Dissodeath is not a new field, and it is certainly a field enjoying some popularity now. In that sense, we can expect it to be flooded with bands which check all the boxes trying to grasp the relative popularity of the big dogs in the field. Ignominy, while clearly playing in the same vein, manage to make their own mark in the field. Their patient building of terrifying atmosphere set them apart from contemporaries and make them well worth thirty-five minutes of your time.
Order from the Transcending Obscurity website or Bandcamp page.
Biography: Hayduke X has been writing for MoshPitNation since June of 2016. He is also a contributor to The Metal Wanderlust. Prior to joining the MoshPitNation team, Hayduke published reviews on his own blog Rage and Frustration. In addition, he has DJ’ed an online metal radio show of the same name as his blog, written for TOmetal.com, done interviews for Metal Rules, and collaborated with The Art of B Productions to create video interviews with a wide variety of bands.
