Precipice [CD]

Lychgate - Precipice [CD]

The sublime 4th full-length from UK avant-Black/Death Metal band LYCHGATE advances the kinetic potency of their 2020 DMP-debut EP "Also sprach Futura" to a frightening level of mind-mangling intensity.

"Precipice" is progressive Extreme Metal plummeting inside a black hole: scorching twisted and transfixing. The band have upped both the dystopic prog-Death quotient and their sense of experimentation moving with formidable mechanised poise and a surrealist's sense of dread.

LYCHGATE layer fusion riffs leads and rhythms into skewed melodic entanglements which erupt into strident bludgeon - balefully contrasted with spacious keyboard-led classical/jazz-inflected passages rich with tension-heavy dynamics. The players bursting forth in a rush of devastatingly claustrophobic vocals and finely-honed avant-Black Metal mastery.

Interweaving literary philosophical and cinematic influences "Precipice" is conceptually based on E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" (1909) - a story of humanity's underground existence and total dependence on a god-like machine - and also draws from Plato's 'allegory of the cave' H. G. Wells' "A Story of the Days to Come" and T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land".

TRACKLIST:
01 Introduction - The Sleeper Awakes 02:32
02 Mausoleum of Steel 04:41
03 Renunciation 05:01
04 The Meeting of Orion and Scorpio 04:31
05 Hive of Parasites 09:58
06 Death's Twilight Kingdom 07:21
07 Terror Silence 04:07
08 Anagnorisis 06:35
09 Pangaea 03:01