The darkest antecedent, untainted by light and worming amidst the black ice of the cosmos, Érebos of chaos is distempered for an eternity by ulterior storms of creation. All forms and arche dissolve into the children of Nýx, no hand or vigorous event guiding them beyond this midnight canal. Cycling dark and light for the sake of motion and life, we become blind to the putrid horrors slipping from the womb of the night and their growing imperium. What rests behind the eye in solitude, a notion of the serpentous black energy that wills all death and thy imagined savior from it, is a blindness of unimaginative and barely sentient humanity compared to the ruin of existence itself; A figment and not a true microcosm. We only begin to peel away the carbonized skin of darkest chthonic consciousness in mediation of ‘Black Abomination Spawn‘, the seamless and tirelessly achieved debut rupture of blackened death/thrashing misanthropy prime Omegavortex. A three-quarter hour treatise upon the electrical magnetism of abyss, the human mind and the impossible to imagine potential of their connection. Cherish it for the boggling reap of psychotic riffing it presents, sit with it until the unsettling nature of its intent becomes cursed and fulfilling exhaustion.

Developed as a separate but sometimes concurrent event as the Shapeless-to-Beyond singularity, the phenomenon of Ambevilence rooted early ideation around 2006 and became a tentative statement in 2013 as some official recordings of prior demoed pieces became an official release (‘Ambevilence‘, 2015) only to reveal a considerable gem in the world of underground death metal. Having left Beyond after some extended inoperation (which is a shame because I really liked ‘Fatal Power of Death’) the main entity behind Ambevilence would decide in 2017 to officially change their name to Omegavortex and later released that original EP as the ‘Omegavortex’ (2018) EP featuring the “Malevolent Chaos” track as an extra. Chaotic and yet controlled by impossibly ancient psyche that’d been sparked into action, a promo to prompt ‘Black Abomination Spawn’ entitled ‘Promo 2018‘ found its way into my hands to some great excitement, a highlight from the year for my own taste as you’ll note from my review of it. We see the interior machinations of the project coming into view over the course of about a decade on the ‘Spectral Blackness‘ (2019) compilation where some rehearsal pieces dating back to 2009-2010 bear structural riffs and actions that gild and intensify the modus of the project today. All of this provenance is vital if you’ve any interest in process and discovery yet, those earlier performances are all dashed to cosmic dust by ‘Black Abomination Spawn’ as an entirely new level of precision and aberration is achieved beyond.

How this translates to knowable, learnable, and sacred forms is perhaps unimportant for the sake of the original self-conjured spark that caused Omegavortex to express. In pulling from hellish experiences while intending to threaten and violate the listener unto a state of disturbance the way this German black/death thrashing band describe their experience you’d almost expect pure dissonance or some unhealthily raw rendering. In fact the style achieved within is unerring, death/thrash guitar work taken to unimaginable violent extremes where blackened death metal ultimately results without losing the origin of the storm. If we can look beyond the early Morbid Angel material and instead see the seeds of Imperator, Necrovore, and even Sadistik Exekution then the primal shapes are most easily revealed. Of course the band does not pull directly from any source in imitation but this sharp taste in blasphemic, hyper-aggressive darkness that continually pushes limits is yet in full view. Modern analogues or perhaps inadvertent compatriots would be Verberis, Khthoniik Cerviiks, and Demonomancy whom all arrive with the strength of classic thrashing death metal and (to a high instrumental standard) blur the typical path via some vital black metal engagement and attack. You might focus solely on the main riffs of the experience and still feel ‘Thy Kingdom Come‘ is the beating heart of the machine but from my perspective we’re light years beyond any of it. The broadest picture reveals an incredibly extreme listening experience, a violence best communicated via strenuous and athletic performance of the highest order. In short, riffs.

Without bending into the typical sourcing of highlights I would suggest that the entire album is one magmatic flow. Not an unheard of level of compact and explosive death/thrash work but an absolute blast of speed that is both implied (as in, 80’s death/thrash guitar technique) and realized… as in, really fucking fast neck-shattering mania in the form of coherent, composed guitar centrifugal works. Omegavortex do swing into great big grooves a la ‘Altars of Madness’ throughout, as you’ll find around 2:55 minutes into opener “Netherworld Descendent” but I only use the comparison for the sake of greater structural feature, in no way does this sound like a bunch of twentysomethings cut and pasting their favorite old school death metal riffs; This is the most important point in consideration of the whole, it does feel as if each piece was crafted in streams the built upon major riff events and then detailed with consideration for both macro and microscopic levels of analysis. This doesn’t mean we’ve been handed a tech-death record but instead served a series of “statement and strong reactions” and this further elucidates the intention of polarization, there are physical forces at work here that make ‘Black Abomination Spawn’ a physical experience. This is in the spirit of true 80’s death metal, not just morbid mosh music strung together but a mastery of speed and technique to the point that it becomes playful. These are forgotten ways, black and evil spells only understood and possible via the most adept sorcerers.

The first several pieces are relentless, making connections and breaking them whilst hammering away at these memorable tightly wound feats of guitar riffing. It is enough to snap the unpracticed guitarist in half, shredding fingers down to bone and wilting them in defeat. “Soul Harvest” turns a slight corner, blackest echoing towards its remarkable second half where even the simpler side of their compositions are placed to be effective, to charm the ear into flattening the mind. Some pieces on Side A seem to have reworked entire sections of demo tracks into new songs but it isn’t until Side B where we hit upon one of my personal favorite pieces from the promo, “Gateways”, still fully intact; If I would highlight one piece that consistently expresses the whole experience in most compact form it’d be this one where we see not only the black, death, and thrash metal pieces of their minds but full integration of each into something inhuman and grotesquely dramatic. It is an absolute trip to sit with this album and be dissolved and denigrated by its intentionally corrosive being, this extends to the intentionally rough mix (via the maestro Patrick Engel) and the eye-churning album art via Henry Mann (ex-Abythic), all of it appropriately feeding the reach of the greater abomination. If you experience your own form of exhaustion, sickness, nausea and disembodied spirits when delving into ‘Black Abomination Spawn’ then Omegavortex have at least partially attained a key goal of conveyance. If it reaches you to the point of spewing distemper, foaming wrath or any measure of visceral horror then you’ve likely been the right mark. It is a thrill, a challenge, an imposingly direct and strong current of heinous energy that is certainly a lot to take in. I would suggest doing so is worth the test of resolve and/or the glory of the arrangements and their inimitable attack. A very high recommendation.

Info:
ARTIST:	OMEGAVORTEX
TITLE:	Black Abomination Spawn
TYPE:	LP
LABEL(S):	Invictus Productions
RELEASE DATE:	November 13th, 2020
BUY & LISTEN:	Bandcamp [All Formats]
GENRE(S):	Black/Death Metal, Death/Thrash Metal

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