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ANCHILLYS
Elan Vital

Self-released (2022)
Rating: 6.5/10

Anchillys is the brainchild of Dutchman Andy Witt, a rather accomplished musician who is responsible for all instruments on this debut full-length album. It’s tech-death that has a feel of older Cattle Decapitation, the sort of jarring noise I can happily live without but will dip into if necessary and in this instance I’m glad I did, more so for the axe work.

The faster passages – and there are many – have a Suffocation brutality, but the slower, more methodical segments and chunkier chugs are what stick with me most. Such examples are evidenced on the monstrous ‘Dirt & Essence’ which squirms and grooves with an engaging tempo. Witt’s vocals switch between deep, guttural growls to a bark of sorts, but it all remains firmly entrenched in that technical death metal bewilderment and I challenge any brave metalhead to attempt to headbang along!

It’s not that it’s overtly bewildering but rarely does it rest on its laurels, so you get a constant deviation in riffs, solos and percussion. I’m thankful then that the opus is only 30 minutes in length, making it easy to revisit in order to write this review.

There’s a real menace to the opening of the title track; a stark, foreboding chug and then an extremely catchy mid-tempo extremity even if the “drum” sounds rather clicky at times. Other tracks of note, again for the axe work, are ‘Gate Of Hades’, with its flashes of Morbid Angel perversity, and for all-out devastation I heartily recommend the tangled web of ‘Sands Of Genitalia’. But wherever you sit with aggressive tech-death, Anchillys will provide you with varying examples of the spectrum should your mood require such a battering.

Neil Arnold

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