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Whether you know him as Dario Derna or Numinas there is no denying the sole driving force behind Ritual Chamber is a talented chap.  I recently picked up the underground DM classic that is Infester's "To The Depths...In Degradation" I have been throwing weird handshapes and gurning like a constipated old man ever since.  Even after some 25 years of being involved in the metal underground in various bands (Funebrarum, Drawn & Quartered and of course Evoken), Derna has lost none of his ability to create terrifying, dark and looming beasts in the form of some of the finest DM you could ever hope to hear during the past two and a half decades. Ritual Chamber's first full length release showcases Derna's multi-instrumentalist talents brilliantly. Following on nicely from "The Pits of Tentacled Screams" demo, Derna continues to exalt the death metal sound of the debut on the follow up with the added edge of having some true horror thrown into proceedings...

Unfathomable is defined as something "incapable of being fully explored or understood". Now that isn't to say that I find Wormed's latest release incomprehensible, no far from it.  It is - as expected - a blistering assault of technical death metal full of crisp yet crushing riffs and vocals so guttural they surely dislodge the vocalists internal organs. The sheer level of attention that is required to track everything that is going on is mind blowing however.  Over ten tracks, Wormed tell a story that whilst obvious as a concept is not going to fall under the familiar structure that we were all taught at school of having a beginning, a middle and an ending.  These three elements are all there of course ,but there is a huge swirling tempest at the very core of everything Wormed do that takes the assured form of a story or a journey and disperses it into abstract chaos. It is this spiralling mass of complexity and multi-level auditory assault that sets them apart f...