RSS Feed


DEGRAVED
Spectral Realm Of Ruin

Dark Descent / Me Saco Un Ojo (2025)
Rating: 7.5/10

Armed with torch, crash helmet and paracetamol, I hesitantly descended the archaic slopes into the turbulent domain of Degraved’s debut full-length album not realising just how unprepared I was for the bludgeoning I was about to receive. Half a decade after inception, the Seattle, Washington-based combo has been responsible for two excellent demos and an EP (Whispered Morbidity), and so there was much anticipation for Spectral Realm Of Ruin, even in the congested bogs of the modern death metal scene.

Degraved care not for other forms of life, their own mutated existence spawns seven tracks of pulverising horror. I must say, I expected Spectral Realm Of Ruin to entice me into its bowels with a suspenseful intro, but no, the quartet is straight to its weapons and provides a hectic barrage of extremity otherwise known as ‘Pariah Of Death & Darkness’. My crash helmet just barely withstood the storming torrents as the band unleashes hell upon those foolish enough to trespass in such terrain. Riffs gnash like the great subterranean jaws of Beelzebub and the drums are head-pounding tirades, blast-beats galore under morose 90s death metal skies. The guys are also adept at slowing things down, not necessarily to a death-doom slime but a mid-tempo groove which chills the bones even further.

There’s little change from previous releases except the fact that Degraved provides more effective sprinkles of eerie synths. These litter certain tracks to great effect, creating a brooding which the churning riffs slither around. ‘Inept Descent’ exhibits the furious side of the band, a raging storm of solid death metal which exists as a dense gushing wall before the grind of the breakdown hits. ‘Stalker Of The Herd’ strikes with similar patterns, no frills or unorthodox angles as such, just the mix of fury and tweaks of mid-tempo madness.

The drums remain the main ingredient, which give this outing its extra kick and nowhere more prevalent than on the monstrous perverse rolls of ‘Unseen’. This is where Degraved becomes a truly colossal force, chugging with such a heavy intensity as the riffs weigh heavy as a sodden blanket of miasmic soil. If one does feel as if the bodily tubes need a rinsing though, then ‘Sulfuric Embalming’ will rid the arteries of any cobwebs. It’s here that the morbid mob taps into its pinnacle of aggression, the density of the riffs acting as suffocating waves of horror as they confront the equally violent drubbing. Closer ‘Vacuous State’ follows a similar bludgeoning dynamic, the vocals a muffled wall of indecipherable bluster to accompany the already smothering cascades.

Spectral Realm Of Ruin is the debut I anticipated – no shocks or frills, just a consistent shift between gears to result in an audible beating.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share