Everyone was likely waiting to hear what Nekus‘ followup to last year’s massive debut 2LP Sepulchral Divination was gonna sound like. Well, the wait is over, here is the follow-up album Death Apophenia in its full, colossal glory, a full day ahead of its release tomorrow:
Crazy to reckon that this monster took only a year after its predecessor to see the light. You’d figure the crushing magnitude of 2023’s double LP Sepulchral Divination would take years to beat, and instead it took Nekus less than a year to close that chapter and open a new one that is stronger in every sense. This gives you a clear idea on what level of ambition this band dwells on.
OK, so what’s better then? Well, by now you’ve already hit play on the player above and can just hear for your self, but basically, Death Apophenia is better than its predecessor in every aspect possible. It’s an imposing and ambitious endeavor with a multidimensional quality to it, as it is so articulated, overbearing and enveloping that is seems to occupy space in all three its main dimensions, appearing in one word, inescapable.
Once again the strategic element around which all rotates here is the overbearing use of reverb, which the band works like clay to recreate its mortiferous and sepulchral atmospheres that make the listener feel like they’ve been entombed into a massive subterranean shrine. Nekus were still negotiating the skill on Sepulchral Divination (which at times suffered from a winded out and washed out guitar attack due to the insane levels of reverb used), but on Death Apophenia they have truly mastered the art of reverberation, creating an utter beast in the studio with an absolutely imposing and tight production value where the reverb is not just sitting on top of the mix as an added effect, but is integrated inside of it, creating a harrowing sense of spatial oppressiveness.
The riffs this time around come bellowing out of the mix with unseen clarity like implacable death sentences, lumbering forth with behemoth-like strides and crushing the listener under lethal amounts of feedback in distortion. It appears as if Nekus have bridged a gap here between entities who revel into horrific droning and abstract agony like Grave Upheaval, and more articulated and riff centered death-doom acts like Spectral Voice. Finding this intelligent middle ground has both made Nekus’ experimental side more concise, straightforward and easy to enjoy, and their stellar penchant for catchy riff-making far more cryptic, horrific and underground-sounding. Where Spectral Voice dilate tempos and create atmospherics with clean passages and orchestration, Nekus instead take care of that line of business with oppressive feedback and droning amplifier torture which ultimately makes them sound like a blend between Sunn O))) and Krypts.
Death Apophenia is officially out tomorrow November 15 2024 via Sentient Ruin worldwide (get it HERE or HERE).
