CEREMONY OF SILENCE

Five years after releasing one of the most terrifying debut records in recent memory, Slovakia's CEREMONY OF SILENCE have become even more twisted. There are certainly a few moments on "Hálios" which could, at a push, be described as blackened death metal, or at least some skewed facsimile. But whatever it is that fuels this shadowy trio's music, it comes from a place much deeper and darker than even the claustrophobic grimoire of its predecessor. Operating in territory that is superficially similar to the likes of ULCERATE and PORTAL, CEREMONY OF SILENCE increasingly eschew anything directly related to black or death meal, preferring instead to weave unfathomable and steroidal noise rock riffs together beneath an ominous, swirling canopy of shapeshifting horrors. As a result, "Hálios" is extremely fucking weird, but also laudably brutal and forward thinking too.

In another, less bewildering universe, "Primaeval Sacrifice" would be a straight-ahead death metal banger. Here, it amounts to a gleeful dismantling of all the usual blackened cliches, as riffs churn and dissolve, propelled by untamed blastbeats and skewed, proggy time signatures and tempo shifts. At times, guitars seem to be working at odds with drums, as excruciating dissonance battles for sonic space with drummer Matús Durcík's unpredictable torrent of blastbeats and grooves. But even as it teeters on chaos, CEREMONY OF SILENCE have a firm grip on the reins and everything snaps seamlessly into place, high on its own perverse, internal logic. "Serpent Slayer" is even more startling: ebbing and flowing, from bursts of excoriating speed to syrupy dreamscapes with an avant-garde undertow, it has the aura of an unearthed ritual, revived for nefarious purposes only.

Digging deeper into the abyssal mulch, CEREMONY OF SILENCE make frequent trips to the old-school death metal realm. "Moon Vessel" is no less warped and wayward than anything else here, but its debt to the epic grandiloquence of MORBID ANGEL and IMMOLATION is obvious. Shards of sinister, gothic melody erupt from all dark corners, vocalist Neplex becomes increasingly unhinged, and a queasy calm descends as the song fades slowly to black. Next, the grim, industrial scree of instrumental "Eternal Return" makes its atmospheric presence felt before "Light Runs Through Light" reduces the air to a discordant fog, with guitarist Villiam Pilarcík peeling off a miraculous array of fucked up riffs and piercing, tremulous noise. Again, the spirit of death metal is here somewhere, but it has a gun pointed to its head.

As intense and hostile as it often is, "Hálios" is eminently listenable and superbly produced, with every jarring clash of textures realized in the most vivid of colors. The closing "King in the Mountain" is worth the price of admission on its own. Constructed on another fluid, willfully contrary groove, it drips with walls-closing-in desperation while taking CEREMONY OF SILENCE ever further away from their blackened death roots and toward something far more psychedelic and subversive. If it doesn't completely break your brain, "Hálios" is a bad dream worth having.