OV SULFUR

The second coming of deathcore has brought us an absurd amount of great music. From WHITECHAPEL's steadily evolving barbarity to LORNA SHORE's arena-ready grandiloquence, with countless other distinctive entities making up the numbers, the genre has sprouted wings over the last few years, and now anything seems possible. Bands that exhibit a lust for commercial fortitude are not always welcomed with open arms in metal circles, but the most pleasing thing about the whole scene is how deathcore's intrinsic heaviness has generally not been sacrificed for the sake of social media-friendly ubiquity or transient chart hits.

OV SULFUR will surely be the next band to raise their bloody foreheads above the mainstream parapet. "Endless" draws from many sources beyond the obvious, and even dares to dabble in metalcore-like, melodic directness. But above all, this is new, shiny and fervently modern deathcore that simply doesn't care about purity. Like most of its most ambitious exponents, OV SULFUR sound ready and prepared to transcend their origins.

Sonically enormous and densely layered, "Endless" is a symphonic deathcore tour-de-force. The Las Vegas quintet nailed their sound on their debut, "The Burden ov Faith", three years ago, and already sounded like the next big thing. But "Endless" goes further and harder, exhibiting a freedom of creative intent that deserves to be regarded in the same light as bands with a much more accessible core style. Somewhere between the heavy use of melodic, clean vocals, and the gargantuan surges of orchestral pomp, OV SULFUR are nurturing something brave and fresh here. Songs like "Forlorn" and "Seed" tick all the boxes that deathcore devotees demand, but with levels of sophistication and fearlessness that many of the band's peers would struggle to attain. Frontman Ricky Hoover's vocals are distinctive and powerful, with intermittent dips into abyssal gutturals and incomprehensible gargling, but also sharp, staccato bursts of lyricism, big, bulbous chorus hooks, and an overriding air of furrowed-brow charisma that makes each song feel like a momentous statement in itself.

They have become increasingly shrewd when it comes to production, sound design and arrangement, too. "Wither" is a much more straight-ahead, melodic indulgence, with echoes of post-grunge and pop-centric metalcore woven into its fabric, but with keyboard embellishments that ooze futuristic and gothic atmosphere, and levels of restraint and subtlety that we definitely never received from the genre 20 years ago. Some might argue that OV SULFUR are breaking the rules here, but those people have no friends. Big, ambitious deathcore is definitely a thing for the foreseeable future, and this band are way ahead of the curve. And yes, "Wither" is the most commercial song they have released to date, and yet within the context of "Endless", it feels more like a bold sideways move than a desperate grab for popularity. The same is true of the climactic title track, but it is also undeniable that the majority of this album will crush us all under the weight of its execution. "Evermore" is a macabre symphonic eruption, like some kind of mutant DIMMU BORGIR with bonus beatdowns and vicious blastbeats; "Dread", which pairs Hoover with INGESTED's Josh Davies, is an act of outright, melodic deathcore carnage, with insidious hooks and a bewildering, over-the-top arrangement that seems strategically designed to snap necks; and "A World Away" (featuring DISTANT's Johnny Ciardullo) swerves progress for a thrilling, riff-driven exercise in pristine brutality.

OV SULFUR make it all fit together with slick precision, and every chorus aims higher than the deathcore average, but there is still enough filth and fury here to keep pit-dwelling knuckleheads spinning on their heels. "Endless" is a confident and classy stride forward.