Fentanyl is a painkiller that works similarly to morphine, but is many times stronger. Doctors can prescribe it when someone is in a lot of pain. It is also used, for example, as a sedative during operations. Because fentanyl easily leads to addiction and can be very harmful to your health (duh, possibly fatal if used improperly!), you will find it on “list one” of the Opium Act in the Netherlands. Although it is intended as a medicine, it is also used as a drug.
Perhaps Brazilian death metal band Escarnium has some experience with this substance? The intro of their fourth album Inexorable Entropy is completely dedicated to it: “Pure fentanyl is fire. … it feels like something slowly, like, just pulling your life force out of you, and then you get tunnel vision, starts getting smaller and smaller. And around this tunnel, there is darkness, right? And it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and closes, and you’re dead. … you have a flatline, no heartbeat … dead.” The how and why of these incantatory words escape me, but it must be said: the chilling, fearful message creates an intriguing intro, which completely captures the attention. In addition, it is a resolute harbinger of the brutality that follows next.
The relentless, blastbeat-driven, brutal death metal of Brazilian band Escarnium features eccentric, fast riffs, layered guitar lines and a biting pace, creating a deep-rooted, vicious brutality. Elian’s snarling guttural sounds are biting, dark and venomous, creating a menacing, macabre atmosphere. Songs like Relentless Katabasis, the title track Inexorable Entropy, The Heritage and Pyroscene’s Might contain a crushing force. This unvarnished cruelty does not only determine the general outlook of the album, it also largely determines its appeal. That is: if you don’t mind having the necessary musical, nihilistic fury poured over you.
By keeping both the playing time of the album (just over half an hour) and the length of the songs (on average around four minutes) relatively short, the quartet manages to prevent the listener from being completely battered by the crushing power of the songs and from quickly becoming tired of listening to them. At the same time, the compositions offer more than only a straightforward layout. Dogged, high speeds are subtly interrupted at a few sparse, carefully chosen moments (Cancerous Abyss, Inexorable Entropy). These refined interruptions do not only add just that little bit more complexity, they also bring with them a refined edge of sensitivity. Something that ensures that in addition to the musical, exorbitant and reckless grimness, there is also room to catch your breath. Needless to say that, after such a moment, the quartet just as easily accelerates all-destructively and with boundless energy? Just before the end of the album, the quartet throws in a somewhat mystical intermezzo, the instrumental Ashen Path, after which the heavy-handed final chord Pyroscene’s Might abruptly rounds off the album.
Score:
82/100
Label:
Everlasting Spew Records, 2025
Tracklisting:
- Fentanyl
- Relentless Katabasis
- Cancerous Abyss
- Inexorable Entropy
- The Heritage
- Revulsion Of Carbon
- Through The Depths Of The 12th Gate
- Ashen Path
- Pyroscene’s Might
Line-up:
- Nestor Carrera – Drums
- Gabriel Dantas – Bass guitar
- Victor Elian – Vocals, guitar
- Alex Hahn – Guitar
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