Venefixion - Armorican Deathrites / Defixio CD

VENEFIXION are heaving and hulking, monstrous and miasmic, barbaric and blackened, but all bristling with an elusive X-factor: not surprisingly, Defixio goes on to be a widely celebrated demo in the underground and above.

Alas, time has come for the quartet's next strike, and it bears the title Armorican Deathrites. Still deadly committed to the Metal of Death, the VENEFIXION we witness across the four tracks comprising these Armorican Deathrites is an even more rabid and red-eyed beast, fiercer and more feral, and yet already exhibiting a confidence and finesse - dare we say "maturity"? - well beyond their rather young years. From the very first few seconds, Armorican Deathrites explodes with an excitement that's tantamount to a pestilent fury; from there, it mangles the mind and body with a malevolence that's absolutely addicting. For VENEFIXION, for all their forward-moving mass, are songwriters above all, and their songwriting strengths have been upratcheted here, twisting terms like "traditional" death metal beyond the pejorative sense of "retro" and into a realm of timelessness, where the early, pioneering works of Morbid Angel, Repulsion, and Autopsy lay. It's an exceedingly fresh stench of DEATH, and it penetrates the nostrils and rots the brain...and all you can do is submit to the pustulent possession of VENEFIXION's Armorican Deathrites.