Album Review: Beyond the Catacombs – Interstellar Burial (Grind to Death Records)

Originally released back in September of 2020, Grind to Death Records will be releasing the physical version of the debut album ‘Interstellar Burial’ of sci-fi themed death metal band, Beyond the Catacombs on January 29th 2021.

Beyond the Catacombs described the album as such:

Interstellar Burial is about harnessing the potential of brutal death metal to produce the atmosphere and soundscape of humankind meeting hostile alien lifeforms and experiencing abyss of space in rusted and worn out space station.

Death metal and science-fiction have always gone well together. Although, often bands lean towards a more technical and progressive style of heaviness when doing this. Beyond the Catacombs have those elements but are focused on showing off a fair bit more viciousness and brutality.

With Interstellar Burial we get a meaty and guttural start with the title track where spacey elements are used sparingly. However, fans of the chunky and bilious stuff will be found gorging on the following beast that is Infected. Whereas Spectral Corpses is littered with the stringy flesh and bleached bones of the victims of aggressive guitar-led metal.

The percussion is what cracks skulls on Too Many Tentacles but the darkened tone also conjures up images of slimy ancient things reaching out through the void. That tone is heightened with Darken the Sun, the slow crawling horror builds and builds but the release never fully comes. Instead it leaves a hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach through the sheer threatening power of it all. A brilliant and very effective track.

It’s quite the opposite with the penultimate effort, Assimilation of The Lesser Bioforms. Where a short and sharp shock to the system is in order. Something that Beyond the Catacombs are more than capable of doing with ease.

It’s a very strong release and one final sci-fi infused death metal epic in the form of the matter destroying Gravitational Collapse is confirmation of that. More people need to be talking about this band.

Beyond the Catacombs – Interstellar Burial Full Track Listing:

1. Interstellar Burial
2. Infected
3. Spectral Corpses
4. Too Many Tentacles
5. Darken the Sun
6. Assimilation of The Lesser Bioforms
7. Gravitational Collapse

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