| After years of patient crafting through acclaimed demos and EPs, OSSUARY's long-awaited debut full-length, Abhorrent Worship, has finally clawed its way into the light—or rather, into the shadows. This is not just an album; it’s a descent. A dismal, grinding, and irrevocably suffocating descent into ritual death.
From the opening drones, a palpable weight settles in. There’s no flashy introduction, no pretentious grandeur—just the slow tightening of a noose. Each of the six tracks, spanning just over 37 minutes, is deliberately constructed to engulf the listener in a realm of hopelessness and decay. The guitar tone is acidic and hulking, oozing forth riffs that churn like subterranean lava flows. The drumming—equally cavernous and disciplined—anchors the chaos with a primitive power, while the bass slithers beneath, thick and ever-present, dragging everything deeper into the mire.
OSSUARY’s vocal performance deserves special mention: a gurgling, reverb-drenched incantation that sounds less like singing and more like some forgotten deity speaking through an unwilling host. It doesn’t lead the music—it haunts it, buried in the mix, like something clawing to get out. And it works. Every rasp and roar feeds into the album’s masterful atmosphere of dread.
What makes Abhorrent Worship truly impressive, however, is its restraint. OSSUARY understand the art of pacing. The band thrives in the mid-tempo, letting their riffs breathe and fester before detonating into brief moments of blast-driven chaos. But even in their most frenzied states, there’s clarity and intention. The transitions are seamless, the dynamics intelligent. There’s a hypnotic quality here—songs move like living organisms, mutating slowly and naturally.
The production is appropriately raw but balanced, capturing the band’s live energy without compromising the murk. It's neither over-polished nor lazily lo-fi—a careful mix that feels like it was excavated rather than engineered.
Ultimately, Abhorrent Worship is the kind of record that commands surrender. It doesn’t ask for attention—it seizes it, traps it, and buries it beneath layers of rot and resonance. It’s not designed for passive listening. This is an album to be endured—and that’s meant as the highest praise.
OSSUARY have not only lived up to the anticipation—they’ve surpassed it. With Abhorrent Worship, they’ve delivered a death metal debut that is unrelenting in its vision, precise in its execution, and wholly devoted to the vile and arcane. Welcome to the tomb.
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