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Diabolic: Subterraneal magnitude
19/11/13 || Habakuk
Long have I shied away from checking out this band. And they apparently have been releasing ample material to support my decision over the course of their career. After some time, I simply forgot about them.
Now, in the loving arms of Spotify, which has been silently leeching my subscription money for some months, by chance or fate I remembered their name – and lo and behold, their shit is up there. A huge blessing for a second/third tier band like this, as I probably wouldn’t have spent my hard-earned cash on one of their albums blindly. Had I done so though, I would have hoped that it would have been on “Subterraneal Magnitude”. This particular album sticks out from a largely mediocre discography as a bad-ass slab of American death metal in the vein of genre greats like Angelcorpse, Monstrosity, or sometimes a less-sludgy Incantation with a good deal of punch.
Starting off with a sluggish, ominous track that combines the songwriting of an actual tune with the feeling of an intro, the album then dives head first into an Angelcorpse-ish full dissonant full speed barrage, but doesn’t stop at a one-dimensional brutality show. There is a shitload of groove and catchiness in this, and it all is masterfully crafted into an album that’s able to survive many spins in your (imaginable) CD player.
A great quality about “Subterraneal Magnitude” is its focus on full-on heaviness despite the album retaining a filthy edge – Thankfully it is not sporting one of these super-polished, sterile sounds that curse many of today’s death metal works. This stems from the production on one hand, on the other hand from elements like the drums: They aren’t played robotically, but with a bit of, well, normal, slightly imperfect timing in some of the faster doublebass or blast beat parts. Far from sloppy, but it feels like there’s somebody actually playing this shit live, which gets big ups from me and makes the album a pretty intense listen.
So, if you are into any of the bands mentioned, you really can do no wrong with this Diabolic album. Even though the lyrics are of a rather bland “satanist” / devastation / three-exclamation-marks type, the convincing delivery by Mr Ouelette makes them work quite well. His style has been described best by someone else somewhere as a more guttural David Vincent, which I’ll happily recite uncommented.
Top it all off with a Joe Petagno (the man who drew the Motörhead logo) cover that could admittedly do with one less skeleton man, and we have ourselves quite the package. Feel free to check out Failed Extraction for that Monstrosity vibe mentioned, but don’t miss out on the sick grooves on Fleshcraft either. Do it!
- Information
- Released: 2001
- Label: Hammerheart Records
- Website: www.diabolic-deathmetal.com
- Band
- Aantar Coates: drums
- Paul Ouelette: vocals, bass
- Brian Malone: lead guitars
- Bryan Hipp: lead guitars
- Tracklist
- 1. Vassago
- 2. Forewarning
- 3. Extinction level event
- 4. Failed extraction
- 5. Deadly deception
- 6. Fleshcraft
- 7. Infernalism
- 8. Diabolic perception
- 9. Soul projection
- 10. Necromancer of the ancient arts
- 11. Subterraneal magnitude
