The Infinite Descent

The debut full length from Diamanthian is somewhat of a bizarre release. Produced by Jeff Walker under his alias "J. Offalmangler" the Liverpudlians have been frequently labelled as a death-doom, a label that puts them alongside such bands as November's Doom or Swallow The Sun, however such a label could not be much more misleading. The core of Diamanthian's sound is brutal, Immolation style death metal, and this is evident from the pounding intro to Slaughter Seduction that kicks the album off so menacingly. Yet after the intro of the song as the crescendo peaks, and when a listener would expect to hear the vocalist roaring into the fray, something else happens. The band seem to turn into a strange jazz lounge quartet and all distortion disappears for just a few second, making way for creepy chord progressions. Then, as abruptly as the clean phrase came in, it leaves and the listener is thrust into a relentless blastbeat with soaring lead guitar melodies over the top.

The inventiveness of the instrumental first track does not wane afterward, far from it in fact. The rest of the album sees everything from sludgy, painfully slow riffs on Fatal Eclipse Of The Soul, to frantically fast sections in Diamanthian and Graven Absolute, to eerie clean guitar verses in Inconsolable Despondency. Yet despite the seeming mismatch of influences and styles the band employ, The Infinate Decent flows incredibly well, so much so that the band's live performances are simply the entire album played in the order the tracks appear, a fact which leads me onto the band's undisputed live favourite. The closer to the album entitled Alpha Male is a track that would not seem out of place on an Ahab or Evoken album, or any other funeral doom band for that matter. The slow and brooding vocals of Scott Lindon are incomprehensibly low, perhaps rivaling those of Joseph Fogarazzo from Rigor Sardonicous, and the sludgy guitars blend together wonderfully to make this track a hypnotising sight live.

Now for perhaps the only complaint I have about this album, the production. Fortunately, this gripe is one that is primarily regarding the guitars and bass, as the drum tone on this album is fantastic and the vocal fit incredibly well. However, the guitars, particularly the lead guitar sound oddly separated from the band, almost as if the album was written and recorded without solos and they were put in post-mastering. As a result, the lead guitar is incredibly loud, overpowering the drums even. It is so loud that the smallest of imperfections during recording are painfully audible, sounds such as pick noise or open string noise which is a shame as the solos are well written and well played. However, the niggles extend beyond the lead guitar, as the bass and rhythm guitar adopt a very sludgy tone. The tone suits the doomier and groove moments wonderfully, but the more fast paced moments of the album such as the intro to Diamanthian suffer because of this, the tone makes the band sound sloppy, which they are most certainly not.

However, the above are the most minor of complaints about an otherwise remarkable album, and a very different approach to death metal. I would recommend this album to any death metal or doom metal fan, it really is that good and deserves far more attention as a debut, the production issues being the only factor that held this album back from a clean 100%. This is death and doom at the same time, and I love it.

95%

Lets get something clear.... I've seen Diamanthian live a few times now and after being quite convinced with their Orchestrated Violence demo, when I heard they were finally able to release this, their debut album, it seemed that finally the band were getting some luck.

It's possibly just my superficial pickiness but I can't help but compare those songs on here to their predecessors on the preceding demo, sometimes positively sometimes not so.

Like I said though, that is purely my stubbornness I guess, coupled with just how accustomed I'd become to the rawer way the songs sounded.

As you might have guessed by that last sentance, the production on this debut is noteably different to that on the rather third-world production (in terms of overall quality, NOT effort/ expertise) inflicted on the demo by financial constraints.
If you'd heard the Orchestrated Violence demo before this, songs of which led to the band repeatedly being earmarked for 'Best Unsigned Act' a number of years running, you might have thought it nigh on impossible to get a more rumbling, brooding... sheer HEAVINESS to the guitars & music.

Well, I myself thought that, until I turned this baby on. Somehow Diamanthian sound even heavier on this record than before (and I might even say heavier than playing live, which is saying something), yet the lead guitars and vocals don't seem to always pay the price of this sheer power, with occasional moments of high clarity (ie for the solos etc).

I'd by lying if I thought this was an absolute pitchperfect awe-striking work of an album. I do have minor quibbles with the songs I thought I knew from having listened to the demo for so long, but that's largely due to my own stubborn-ness.

For a pretty much entirely self-financed band with a steadily growing loyal fanbase (even touring Finland for fucks sake!), this is as strong an old school death metal fest as could be asked for.

There's practically something for everyone here.... groove in places, aggression in others, brute force, lightning-pace guitar solos, and notably inhuman vocals...

The least you people reading this can do is help fucking support bands like Diamanthian, who not only have passion, aggression and dedication but sheer determination to play metal FUCKING LOUD!!!

"Some thoughts have a certain sound"? Whatever thoughts they are, they certainly are LOUD thoughts!