Genre: Black/Death Metal | Label: Bird of Ill Omen
Location: Edmonton, AB| Listen: Bandcamp
Antediluvian has long been one of my favourite bands in my hometown of Edmonton. Relocating to this city from the greater Toronto area, they were in their infancy when I just heard of them. By 2008, they dropped the monumental “Under Wing of Asael” demo, which is where they really started to hone in on their identity. That demo’s mix of war metal relentlessness with cavernous death metal like Incantation was exactly up my alley at the time, and I was hooked (which I gave a 90% on this website many years ago). I anxiously awaited new material from the band, and I was delighted to find out they had entered the studio by the end of 2008 to record some new tracks.
Three of the songs from this session were finally released at the beginning of 2011, titled “Revelations In Excrement.” This 12″ EP continued in the direction of the aforementioned demo, further diving into the depths bizarre cavernous death metal. The low, Craig Pillard like vocals sound as crushing as ever, and there’s some Beherit-esque whispers scattered throughout behind them. “Demon Spore” employs some vocal panning, with lines alternating between speakers, a nice touch on the production end. The guitars spill forth strings of Incantation style riffs but with a primitive black metal execution, like Beherit or Blasphemy. This has long been a staple of Antediluvian’s sound, and it mostly comes from how the drums put in those “goat” style blast beats.
Again, the riffage found here is sinister, with some pretty weird patterns that utilize both shifting power chords and longer tremolo picked phrases. These are on full display during the second track, “At the Swirling Spouts of Uncreation.” The lead tones are great, not sounding too sharp, but utilizing plenty of reverb and delay, fitting well into the atmosphere of Antediluvian. There’s even some clean guitar stuff on this track, and some more bizarre vocal gurgles, grunts, and garbles. The outro of this song (and thus side 1) lives up to the track name, as it swirls around before cascading into its end. The second side, “Rapture Amongst the Phosphenes,” features more vocal experimentation, with ominous sounding moans popping up halfway through the track.
The sound and production values of this EP continue down the path of improvement, boasting a much more discernible and full guitar tone, and a more natural drum sound. That being said, there’s still quite a lot of murk in the sound, which is part of Antediluvian’s charm. The drums, although more natural sounding, don’t have a lot of impact, and the kick is especially lost at times. It’s not too terribly detrimental, but perhaps fans of the full lengths might find it thinner in comparison.
“Revelations in Excrement” is a nice little gem in Antediluvian’s discography, although it likely was overshadowed by the release of their debut which came out later in the same year. It shows an improvement in the production department, and continues to display nuanced, challenging, and unorthodox songwriting executed in a strangely primitive fashion. There was a fourth track recorded in this session, which didn’t get released until early 2015 on the Witchrist split, which I generally listen to alongside this EP. It should also be noted this is the final recording session the band did as a two piece. Although it’s a short listen at under 15 minutes, I would gladly recommend this to anyone curious about metal from Edmonton.
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