Exodromos

So get this: I’ve been looking for suitable tunes to write to, and I think I’ve found a genre of music perfect for this activity: technical brutal death metal! No, seriously, hear me out: When I listen to other music, I usually get caught up in all the lilting melodies so much that my concentration breaks every time, all because I want to listen closer to the songs. This isn’t to say I don’t experience the same attraction to technical brutal death metal – indeed, my issue lies with volume dynamic: If the songs maintain a consistent volume and melody composition, then I won’t be so distracted by them and I can concentrate on the task at hand again. While I’m sure there exists other genres of music that satisfies these parameters, my current tastes have finally opened up to technical brutal death metal, as I’ve found the intentional cacophony constructed by these bands to be ideal for research and writing, weirdly enough.

What do my studying habits have to do with this album? Well… Wormed have recently become my favorite band under this genre as I can use anything after Quasineutrality as background music, and I felt I must write a review to what I feel is the best album in their discography. With Exodromos, Wormed have composed arguably their best record, a technical beast that resides in space and transforms violently with every song. All poetic pretense aside, the band’s complex sound fits so well into my studying playlist, I can heartily recommend them as an actually decent band.

Even though “Nucleon” opens with ominous electronic noise, the band soon blasts its way into audible existence, beginning the beast’s ravaging trek across hyperspace just to land into my headphones/speakers with the force of a planet collision. Once my ears had adjusted to the controlled chaos, I soon noticed the interesting interplay between the guitars and the rhythm section, flying around with almost reckless abandon/no discernable breakdowns. Though my ears are used to more melodic bands such as pre-millennium In Flames and anything by Dio, they still caught how the guitar riffs maintained the same rhythm as the frantic drumming, leading me to believe neither section took the lead – or better yet, both sections decided to put their best foot forward with their synchronized swimming through nebulas of deceit and despair.

Speaking of despair, the vocals, indecipherable with surface listens, come across like a guttural accompaniment to the instrument interplay – they’re good and serve their purpose, surely, but my ears tell me the guitars and drums are the real standouts of the album. I will say, just about all of the growling done by the singer maintains its consistency regarding melody and register throughout the album, which may seem like a problem on first glance since that means the vocals don’t vary much throughout the album. However, with the guitars and drums currently controlling the conniving creature that is Exodromos, a vocalist that doesn’t stand out suits the album better as he allows me to ignore him when I need to, yet process his bestial poetry when I want to.

With all the focus on constructing convoluted creations out of guitar riffs, fast drumming, and sickening vocals, Exodromos travels along its destructive path, leaving behind ten songs to destroy your sense of space and time. Okay, but for real, the album’s cohesive structure lends to a complete listen rather than single song searching, as I feel the atmosphere of metallic death comes across much better when taken entirely than in doses. I could say this album’s biggest fault lies with that issue – the only song melody I can recall of the top of my head is in “Xenoverse Discharger,” and that’s only because the final half the of song turns strangely melodic, where the drums stop temporarily just so I can hear the awesome riff in isolation. If anything, it just means I remember parts of the album by how far into the album I am, and the melodic part in the final track stands out as the prime example of my memory process, so take that how you will.

I find it hilarious how my studying habits took me from calm piano renditions of awesome Final Fantasy tracks to technical brutal death metal, considering how raucous the latter genre sounds. Exodromos by Wormed represents what I want to hear from bands like this: crazy instrumentality with purpose, vocals that make for a suitable companion to the rest of the music, and a blistering pace containing the fury of twenty “Xenoverse Dischargers.” Even though I opine this album’s most memorable song is the melodic closer (watch out for that closing note that rises in volume just as the song ends), the album as a whole still provides a worthwhile journey, intense and compact, yet deliberate and complete.

After "Quasineutrality" announced both Wormed's active status in the metal community and a newer, more dissonant yet still slam-filled sound, Wormed released "Exodromos."  It took them three years to release it after their two-track EP, and it was a huge success.

Now, I would like to make this clear: Do not judge a Wormed album after the first listen.  Wormed's writing is super complex and layered, thus requiring at least three listens for someone to actually get a valuable opinion from it.  Here's how the human brain works: it can't process technical death metal as fast as the music plays.  In other words, you can listen to a tech death album and your brain will still be trying to process track two, but you're listening to track five.  Have you ever listened to something like "Illuminence" by Virvum or "Daesin" by First Fragment and thought it was just a cacophony of notes and arpeggios?  This is because it's so fast and complex that that's what your brain makes it out as.

This is especially relevant to Wormed because there are so many riffs and progressions in each song that most of the riffs aren't even played twice.  In other words, there are even more riffs in one Wormed song than in a typical tech death song, thus it takes the brain longer to process a Wormed song than any other tech death band.  "Quasineutrality" is two tracks, so it doesn't take long for the brain to process its complexity, although it may take a couple of listens anyways.  "Exodromos" and "Krigsu," on the other hand, are 30 minutes of this kind of music.  So before you jump to conclusions about Wormed, listen to their stuff a lot, or listen to a track and take a break before the next one.

Anyways, just had to get that out of my system before the review of the first of Wormed's most complex albums.

So, to start, this is a concept album and "Krigsu" is the sequel to this album.  It's all about space stuff that I really don't understand.  The music is amazing, but I do not find myself as entertained as when I listen to their first album.  This is not to say that I am completely bored when listening to this album, but it's definitely my least favorite Wormed album.  There's just something about it that is less intriguing.  Maybe it's because I just listened to it a million times in a row before reviewing it (and a million times before that).

So the riffs are definitely more dissonant than their first album, something that "Quasineutrality" foreshadowed.  It's definitely a groovy album when it comes to slams, technicality, and overall brutality.  In fact, this is probably Wormed's most dissonant album to date.

Like I said before, it takes a lot of time to garner everything this album has to offer.  After a few listens, there are some really cool things to notice.  There's some flashback to "Planisphærium" in "The Nonlocality Trilemma" (what does that even mean) with the slam riff.  Another thing I didn't notice on the first few listens is that round 1:56 of "Nucleon" (I might have an idea of what that means) there's this very brief and quiet sweep picking section.  This is on the first track and I never noticed it until I had been listening to it for a while.  Something else I didn't notice the first time was that there's a riff around 2:13 on "Multivectorial Reionization" (again, what does that mean) that is the same exact riff as the one that starts "Xenoverse Discharger" (what do these song titles mean).  This repetition within separate tracks is not laziness, it's just foreshadowing.  Keep in mind that this is a concept album.

So this album is pretty brutal and complex and, again, I have no problems with it other than there's nowhere to breathe.  Their first album had that 14-second instrumental that was a good amount of time to breathe, but this album is just straight brutality all the way through.  Sure, the last track, "Xenoverse Discharger," might as well be an instrumental.  It may also be the most peaceful brutal death metal track I've ever heard, but there's nothing in the middle of this album to help the listener process what's going on.

In total, "Exodromos" is a classic piece of brutal death metal.  It surpasses most other brutal death metal acts by miles and Wormed only gets better from here.

Overall Rating: 95%

Originally written for themetalvoid.wordpress.com

Spanish death metal quintet Wormed is a group that specializes in balancing technicality with sheer brutality. Established in 1998 from Madrid, they released a number of short albums, as well as a full-length record "Planisphaerium" in 2003. They later signed to Willowtip Records, which also took in bands such as Defeated Sanity and Neuraxis. What follows would be the release of the band's second full-length album called "Exodromos."

The musicianship demonstrated in this album is very good. Starting off, the guitar work is the best aspect of this instrumentation. Without noodling, they deliver technical riffs, brutal chugs, rapid-fire licks, and perhaps anything else to make for a diverse performance. These aspects are all tied together with the vehement and spacey sound they generally deliver. On top of that, the vocals, consisting of deep gutturals, add to the band's cosmic yet brutal sound. They could have used more variety, such as the high-pitches in the opening track "Nucleon," for more variety, but they are well performed nonetheless. The drums are also great, being incredibly fast-paced and complex, but solid enough to keep the formula tight and focused. All things considered, the musicianship definitely succeeds in this album.

Along with the instrumentation, the sound production is also quite stellar. The one behind it would be Carlos Santos, who had also recorded and mixed albums for other acts such as Human Mincer and Hybrid. The job is well done here, keeping the instruments clear and powerful while holding a surprisingly good amount of thick atmosphere. The mixing is yet another strong point for this album.

As stated earlier, Wormed has a formula of fusing brutal and technical death metal for an unrelenting listen. Overall, this plan is very well-crafted. It seems like it would have been so easy for the tracks to sound monotonous and repetitive, for its highly devastating fabric. However, this thankfully isn't the case, because the music is smartly written. The album as a whole has a few quieter moments to make the heavier parts sound even more explosive. To top it off, there is a good abundance of gripping parts that manage to tie together into solidly-built structures. Though not always an attention-grabbing death-ride, it cannot be denied that the band has really got around in terms of focusing on both deadliness and coherency. The music is beyond decent.

"Exodromos" is overall a very well put-together and potent death metal release. The musicianship is performed greatly, the production is also done nicely, and the songs themselves are powerfully constructed and executed. With how well the album turned out, it is recommended for fans of technical and brutal death metal. Along with that, Wormed proves to be a band that isn't to be taken very lightly.


Originally posted on: http://metaljerky.blogspot.com/

It took Spain's Wormed a whole decade to write another chapter in the band's novella of a discography, which, up to "Exodromos," only had included a handful of minor releases and one full-length album. "Planisphærium," the debut record authorized by these denizens of ultra-brutal technical death metal, became the cat's ass (perhaps the xenomorph's blade-tipped tail better fits the context) upon its release, receiving positive reviews, a sturdy following, and the word-of-mouth feedback that instilled quite the cult for Wormed. "Exodromos," Wormed's sophomore effort, used many moons (a whole decade‘s worth) coming out of the astral womb, but the thirty-three minutes of projected terror and psychosis retching from its intergalactic wormhole are still totally nuts and destructive; a seismic blast of technical death metal from its prince in the shadows.

So, I suppose in the field of space-themed technical death metal akin to Obscura or Spawn of Possession, Wormed stands as its most animalistic enterprise. "Exodromos" is, on the one hand, a staple example of what to expect from technical death metal. The Spaniards send multitudes of tempos and structures à la Cryptopsy or Defeated Sanity constantly crashing into waves of harsh riffs, brutal breakdowns, blasting madness, and other fierce rhetoric. In essence, it's a brutal technical death metal record; if you've any experience with the sub-genre's philosophies, you should have a general idea of what to expect. On the other hand, there's a general balance between algorithmic lunacy and throwing in mathematical parts for the sole purpose of appearing perplexing or complex.

In essence, many parts of "Exodromos" will be retained by the listener, and at times vibes of Immolation et al. vibrate from the cosmic ruins of Wormed's travels, more so than, say, Malignancy or a similar brother sharing algebraic blood. It's a rather nice quality to have, because "Exodromos" never relents its mincing violence yet there's a lot more going on than just overloading the auditory space with measureless nonsense. The vocals don't do much for me, however; the standard puking, indecipherable, mega-guttural bellows applied by many of this niche. The narrative passages throughout the haunting "Solar Neutrinos" and a handful of others spice things up a bit, fitting well into the group's folklore and comprehensive atmosphere.

Every song stands on its own, but I prefer "Xenoverse Discharger" over the rest; it's a creepy, alien ritual of boiling guitar parts and sinister atmosphere, yet filled with blast beats and traditional qualities of Wormed all interwoven into its core. "Exodromos" is a proper continuation of the extraterrestrial violence found throughout "Planisphærium," although Wormed took their sweet time making the record. However, if they continue forging albums like "Exodromos," they can take as much time as they need. That said, technical death metal addicts will find their fix within the corridors of Wormed's intergalactic prophecies of doom. "Exodromos" deserves your attention, this coming from a dude often repelled by ultra-brutal death metal.

This review was written for: www.Thrashpit.com

In what may be the first recorded example in the history of music of a band having a gap of ten years between their debut and sophomore efforts and not coming out on the other side as a complete pile of shit, Wormed's second album Exodromos is actually surprisingly solid, and while it's been quite a while since the band first released Planisphærium in 2003 (granted, I don't exactly know when writing for this album officially started), this feels neither underdeveloped and thrown together nor overcooked and overly ambitious. It's just good ol'-fashioned song-based technical brutal death metal with Wormed's unique flavor of riffcraft left intact.

Now, obviously, brutal death metal has changed since 2003, but Wormed roll with the genre surprisingly well - Exodromos is still distinctly a Wormed album, but it's not a clone of Planisphærium. The production is a lot more modern, most notably for the guitar tone; the unusually dark and claustrophobic guitar tone on the band's debut has been replaced with a shiny, pristine, crystal-clear but thankfully well-balanced set of guitars (it's worth noting that this "modern" sound generally only works for Wormed because of their overall atmosphere and aesthetics and that I don't really encourage its general use in modern BDM). Altogether, when compared to its predecessor, Exodromos feels a lot less... dark. Whereas Planisphærium brought to mind an impossibly dark, murky, unexplored, uninhabited region of space, this album definitely depicts a developed sort of civilization - it may be chaotic and dangerous, but it is invariably constantly hustling and bustling with alien life as opposed to existing inside an abiotic vacuum.

The overall repertoire of riffs still bears some semblance to "Cryptopsy in space", which is what I like to call the debut, but in general this sounds a bit closer to the modern tech-death tropes of dissonant chords, super-fast gravity blasts and convoluted rhythms. That's not to say it's all noodling, though - while Wormed never really use any slams here, Exodromos is nevertheless an undeniably groovy album. The band use breakdowns instead of slams, which are usually pretty effective despite the complex rhythms used under them (granted, an exception of quality can be made for the song "Darkflow Quadrivium", which is just... really not good). Even the faster, practically deathgrind-like riffs are bursting with catchiness, partially on account of the relentless feeling created as the guitarists relent on their palm-muting and let the undiluted open notes whack you in the face for a while. Aside from the added groove, the band have started focusing a bit more on outright atmosphere - there are a fair share of major scale melodies and waves of fuzzy, clean, jingly guitars which would fit rather well in a Lykathea Aflame song, and Wormed are better than most tech-death outfits when it comes to writing and integrating these sorts of riffs. The vocals mesh with them surprisingly well, too, or at least better than you'd think they would on paper.

The vocal performance this time around is clearer, but their style is still that set of uniquely alien, almost shrieked inhales, which sometimes strip themselves down to practically Waking the Cadaver-worshiping croaks. I think I might actually even like this album's vocals more than the debut's; not because the techniques have changed in any way, but because the added sonic definition they have this time around is nice to hear. While they were certainly a point of interest on the debut, on that album they were less integral to the overall performance, whereas here they're at the front of the mix and the music doesn't suffer a bit from it.

The only really big problem here is that the songs aren't really as instantly memorable here as they were on the debut. The composition of the songs themselves is actually really impressive for brutal death metal, in that the songs have a stunning sense of flow, tension release and conclusion; but in terms of riffs there's not that much that just immediately grabs you by the balls like the band once did with stuff like, say, the opening riff of "Tunnel of Ions". The deathgrind-influenced riffs are certainly fun, but none of them possess any melodic identity and sound like minor, practically nonexistent adaptations on the same base; same goes for the breakdowns. And this is arguably a minor issue, as the band don't do it very often, but when Wormed break out the stop-start riffs, shit starts getting really bad really quickly. Listen to that load of crap in the last 35 seconds of "Techkinox Wormhole" - who the fuck approved that!?

Overall I probably like this a little bit less than I liked Planisphærium, on account of the debut's more deadened atmosphere and more refined set of riffs, but Exodromos is a cool album that's still distinctly Wormed with a few new tricks added up their sleeves. Between the impressive songwriting, the improved production and the brand new "pretty" riffs integrated into their sound, one could very easily find this release to altogether be a step up in quality from Planisphærium, and I seriously doubt that any Wormed fan is going to be disappointed by it either way.

The meaning behind the word "Exodromos" is enigmatic, but may best be understood as a combination of the prefix "Exo" (meaning outside or external) and "Dromos", a word that pertains to the pathway to an ancient tomb, particularly that of Egypt (though a second definition dealing with an Ancient Greek racetrack is possible, though far less likely). In keeping with the propensity for extremely deep and complex lyrical content, Wormed has basically found themselves in something paralleling "Stargate", or otherwise dealing with an interstellar understanding of spiritual dualism to adorn an album that is largely concerned with astronomy, astrophysics and biology. It's a fitting introduction to an album that, in contrast to its rougher predecessor "Planisphaerium" (which denotes an olden text by Greco-Roman scientist and mathematician Ptolemy), is marked by a clearer and more ambitious nature.

While a 10 year gap between 2 LP releases is quite a large one, this album doesn't deviate too far from its predecessor stylistically. The same hodgepodge of note motives and incomprehensible vocalizations endures, though it has become a tad less otherworldly due to a crisper production that allows the riff work to take on a slightly more traditional death metal character. There are times when the transitional works of Suffocation and Cryptopsy circa 1993-1996 can be deciphered amid the chaotic sonic foray, providing a vivid musical picture akin to terrified inhabitants of some distant planet as their sun supernovas. Particularly of note is the percussive rhythmic unity of the riff work with the Flo Mounier inspired blast and machine gun beats.

An important thing to keep in mind with this band is that, in contrast to younger brutal acts with a fixation for space such as Rings Of Saturn, this is not really a technical band in the same mold as the post-Cryptopsy crowd. Songs such as "Tautochrone" have a fair amount of frenetic guitar work that can be qualified as virtuosic, but they tend to be confined to the lower echelon of the guitar's range, thus not really qualifying as the sort of Braindrill showboating that tends to get associated with many younger technical acts. The bass is much more audible and involved on this album in relation to the first LP, but is also not openly showy in either a slapping Cryptopsy approach, or a post-Sadus fretless noodling mold either. There are a few moments such as the higher pitched riffing on "Multivectorial Reionization" where things could be qualified as slightly progressive, and the deep ended yet intelligible spoken sections both on this song and "Solar Neutrinos" do come off as unorthodox, but there are times when this sounds closer to Dying Fetus than Beyond Creation.

In contrast to their previous album, this is something that even an occasional brutal death listener like myself can go back to on a regular basis without getting bored. Wormed may not be the most prolific act out there today, but when they deliver, it hits the ears like a massive meteoroid traveling near light speed. If getting one's bones crushed under the weight of the equivalent of a sonic cannon while simultaneously getting an informal science lesson is the order of the day, consider "Exodromos" the cosmic soup du jour.

Believe the hype. Wormed speak adequately to the zeitgeist... or at least the online simulation of the same. Problematics and possible arguments (not “controversies”) when first considering a review of the new Wormed album: the role of the writer and reviewer, the role of the listener. A reviewer is expected to somehow, even in a limited space, for a short time, try to convert music to words (depending on his/her skill, this is another problem) and then comment on those same conversions – or on the analogous conversions of others. I don't care about any of that. Do you?

If you want to listen to Wormed you have the means to do so. Their new album leaked weeks ago, it's streaming on at least one website, descriptions are unnecessary. It's death metal, it is (as I said before in my review of the latest Devourment album) miscast, misaligned, shallowly-understood slam rising newly to breach the genre specifics of that hastily, dilettantishly circumscribed neo-genre. We now see “mainstream” death metal, meaning the “main current”, not death metal directed at “mainstream” listeners (what the fuck are those?) squatting, giving rise to daughter subgenres and then sucking up and incorporating the ideas of the same. Babies making babies. This is natural. Death metal, just like black metal, strains at the boundaries of its definitions, as it always has, spins out mutations and sucks them back in again. This is another way of saying: it's all death metal. It's all metal. It's all rock and roll. Deal with it.

Wormed enjoy playing with microgenre riff specifications. They'll throw out something that hints at what might be a bedroom black metal nth generation misunderstanding of an old Voivod riff if that makes you feel comfortable in the newly spun, created-while-listening microcosm of “interpretation” while you hunt for sonics that illustrate fantasies of abduction you didn't know you had. You'll say: yes, Voivod, yes, space, yes...something or other. Artificial harmonics, off-key chromatic dithering that makes people say “dissonance” without knowing what that word means in music theory. "Space" equals a limitless possibility that death metal can now move into, its signifier: the discordant that screams “The Future” (always capitalized), that Great Abstraction, that Great Nothing. Boundless optimism meaning nothingness (and this is Wormed's secret alignment with death metal's historic pessimism) because in pointing at all possibility it points at nothing at all.

Wormed's guitars careen, accelerate and stop mute, twist and turn, writhe and dive, scream and microchug, absorb all of thrash, the entire history of death, they rise to the melodic insincerity of a failed black metal (yet never downcast, Wormed seek the optimist... which means the inhuman) and then thumb their nose at the same. Melodicism from the entire history of The Machine. If it seems insincere and outside all of history it's because it seeks to be, in turn, outside all of humanity, forgetting that humans create the robotic. At heart it's that same replicant rhythm, or the semaphore, dead-inside shouting to the deaf: the future is beat and pulse, it's sub-Meshuggah math rhythm because this brings us, somehow, back to our humanity, although this is just a surface communication and so: meaningless. Rhythm was the beginning of music... will it be the future? Is that our essence? No, now, humanity's fate seems to be in embracing technology, in embracing The Inhuman, in absorbing and being fucked by “extremity” that is somehow shoved by Freudian prosthetic god technology into a projected nirvana that is, let's admit it... a totalitarian nightmare. Rhythm under will, rhythm is the law.

Wormed, on this album, play an incredibly technically precise and beautiful form of death metal that should inspire many (most to insincere, shallow replication) to follow in their footsteps, it's entertaining, moving (in the bodily sense, it doesn't touch the emotional), I have listened to this album at least twenty times already. They completely lack spirit, transcendence, humanity. That's the point. If that's truly (they're artists, you can turn away from what they're trying to sell you) the case this might be the most negative death metal album in a long while. Death as in “death of humanity?” It might seem natural to some, the grave-worshippers, the ash-swallowers. I prefer my death metal a little more humanistic. I want to feel runny flesh and grave fat in my death metal, I want to feel horror, shame, guilt, dread... I want to pretend I'm still alive. Wormed tells you: no, you're dead, you're abstracted consciousness, you're floating in the ether, let's convert your bones to stainless steel and still make music. In that sense? This album is a triumph. I love it in any case.

UA

Erebus Magazine
http://erebuszine.blogspot.com

After forming around the turn of the millenium playing a futuristic twist on brutal death metal, Wormed have reemerged with their second long-play, Exodromos. The crisper production from their Quasineutrality EP has returned and Riky from Avulsed is behind the drum set on this release.

While that first paragraph seems strictly factual, there are two distinct elements of it that make this record less great than it could have been. First, the production. I rarely complain about metal albums’ production. My view is that a great song can shine through poor production, just like a great band can still put on an incredible show in a shitty bar or basement with terrible sound. But Wormed’s debut Planisphærium had such suffocating production that it gave it a unique atmosphere. In the same way the setting can be a character in a movie (like Mars in Total Recall, for instance), the production of Planisphærium made the listener feel like his space helmet had been removed and the pressure was turning his cranium inside-out. Even though the instruments are more clear and audible this time around, giving Wormed modern tech-death production is stripping away one of their strengths.

Second, their old drummer Andy C. is gone. I loved Andy C.’s playing on Planisphærium because he was able to combine technical skill with tastefully unusual fills that kept him from seeming like a show-off. His playing was unique and stylish in a way that’s incredibly rare for the genre. Riky is a strong drummer and he does inject some personality into his playing, but his performance on the record, while a technical marvel, is less stunning than the work Andy C. did on the first album.

Those two demerits aside, Exodromos is a strong but mildly disappointing follow-up record, considering I place their first among the best albums of the genre. The guitar riffs aren’t afraid to use the higher strings instead of simply rumbling around the downtuned depths, and they often feel like they just slashed through a wormhole. The song structures are still playfully unpredictable, like in “Stellar Depopulation,” where a jigsaw puzzle of trebley riffs builds to a slam that’s over as soon as it began. “Spacetime Ekleipsis Vorticity” keeps the same headbang tempo through a handful of varied riffs, with a quick break for atmospherics. The spacey atmosphere is still all over the album, but it feels a little more Prometheus than Alien this time. Phlegeton’s vocal performance is impressive but again, the clean production makes him sound a little less alien than he used to.

Wormed is still a very talented group who know how to craft a brutal technical death metal album with the best of ‘em. They just weren’t quite able to capture space-lightning in a space-bottle this time.

Wormed created a strong cult following in the underground brutal death metal scene when it released its debut album, Planisphaerium, back in 2003. The band's bizarre complexity and ultra-guttural vocals really caught some attention. After seven years passed, Wormed finally released the two song Quasineutrality EP which altered the band's sound slightly and offered a cleaner production job. However, seven years was a long wait for only two new songs, and fans were soon ready for more. Now, Wormed has finally unleashed its second full-length, Exodromos.

Wormed's most recent opus, Exodromos, basically picks up where the EP left off. Only now the songs are stronger, and the production is even clearer and more powerful. The music on Exodromos might be a little more catchy and feature more simple chugging than in the past, but there's still an overwhelming amount of complex riffs, odd lurching rhythms, and sickening dissonance to keep this new material "one hundred percent Wormed." Exodromos strikes a perfect balance between chunky grooves and complex riffage, brutal palm-muting and high ringing chords, and suffocating blasting and wide open space. Dissonant semi-clean arpeggiated chords add an eerie vibe and some much-needed breathing room when used in tandem with the furious pounding and battering. As in the past, there are not really any guitar solos to speak of, only occasional lead licks. The vocals remain low, indecipherable gurgles except for a few spoken parts. The complex arrangements and the top-notch musicianship ensure that there's plenty here to dissect after repeated listens, yet there's also enough standout parts to latch onto immediately. Essentially, Exodromos is a combination of Wormed's previous work with stronger production and songwriting.

Fans have waited a long time for another Wormed full-length and expectations are understandably running high. After listening to Exodromos, a fellow Psaltine said something like, "Ten years for this? Hundreds of brutal bands could write this in their sleep." Obviously I don't agree with that statement, but some of you might. Give this album some time, and see what you think. Exodromos is quickly becoming my favorite Wormed release. Fans of Gorguts, Ulcerate, and possibly Meshuggah could find something to like here. Old Wormed fans, especially those who enjoy the EP, should pick up Exodromos before the weight of this album tears apart both space and time and annihilates all of existence.

Originally written for http://www.metalpsalter.com