Reviews: SAT392
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The last time we hosted the premiere of a song from the Filipino death metal band Comatose (here) we called the music “both diabolically frenzied and lethally vicious, both cold-blooded and wild,” a “combination of feral bloodlust and pre-meditated cruelty.”
That was a long 6 1/2 years ago, and the occasion back then was to help spread the word about their forthcoming second album The Ungodly Lamentations. Now, at last, Comatose are back with a new album and we’re back with them again, hosting another song premiere.
The new full-length is The Unhallowed Congregation, and it will be co-released on May 21st by Satanath Records (Georgia) and WP And RO Productions (Netherlands). The song we have for you today is “Condemn To Darkness.”
With founding guitarist/vocalist Bellz Lee still at the helm, Comatose haven’t backed down or backed off the evil-to-the-core savagery or the song-writing dynamism that have been hallmarks of their music. But as you’ll discover from this new song, they’ve loaded the music with even more fiendish facets.
“Condemn To Darkness” is a diabolical trip from beginning to end, one in which the band repeatedly shift the tempo, the riffing, and the mood. The guitars are tuned to the tone of a furiously buzzing hornet’s nest, and the quick-changing riffs cause the music to lurch and swarm, to deliriously dart and spin, to viciously chug and morbidly gouge.
They also bring in a weirdly pulsating and queasy-sounding melodic harmony as well as a deliriously shrill and rapidly spiraling guitar solo.
Throughout these maniacally head-spinning fretwork machinations Lee expels the words in a range of hellish growls, sometimes doubled up for extra horror, along with savage barks and hair-raising screams. The drumming and bass-work are likewise variable, and nimble, doing far more than staying on track as the tempos repeatedly down-shift and up-shift. It all makes for a hellish and head-spinning experience
Seven years ago we wrote: “The odds are high that fans of old school death metal in the vein of Deicide, Morbid Angel, Sinister, Hypocrisy, Vader, and Cancer will make an immediate connection to the music.” Those are still good odds in the case of Comatose‘s new music.
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2025/05/14/an-ncs-premiere-comatose-condemn-to-darkness/