Metal Underground.com

Antediluvian’s debut LP “Through The Cervix Of Hawwah” has more to it than the average death metal record. While riff-driven and fronted by an ominous atmosphere, the band has an incomprehensible air to it that is shared by acts like Portal and Mitochondrion. The vocals are impossible to understand, with their deep tones pushed to the back of the mix. The band gets to speeds that fly off the handle, almost unfolding into a soggy blur. To their credit, the band has a knack for switching the tempos enough to side-step any issues that could arise.

The Canadian foursome, which started out as a duo, has spent the past few years working up a catalog of demos and EPs in anticipation of a full-length. All that work paid off, as “Through The Cervix Of Hawwah” comes off like it was written and recorded by a well-polished group. There isn’t much in the way of technical musicianship, though the drums have plenty of life to them thanks to the fills and off-timed beats by Mars Sekhmet. A few guitar leads emerge, but this is all about the riffs, as any good death metal album should be.

The instrumental fury of “Rephaim Sceptre...” sets the stage for the ruthless title track, which combined makes for five minutes of pure annihilation. That feeling never sinks away from the record, even when the band scales back the pace. There’s always a murkiness to shun the light of the holy spirit away from these nine songs. If the band went as fast as they do on the title track throughout the album, this might have been a little too dense ala Portal. While Antediluvian could be accused of doing this in their early days, “Through The Cervix Of Hawwah” doesn’t run into this problem.

“Intuitus Mortuus” has key traits of the band smudged into one tune, including the intangible speeds, mid-tempo dirge, and a prolonged conclusion heavy on the sampling to drive up the creepy factor. “Turquoise Infidel” fades in with an unassuming mass of chanting and percussion before setting up a raucous mesh of guitars and drums. Even a short, three-minute song like “From Seraphic Embrace” finds space to branch out from the noisiness for a momentary reprieve.

The band saves their best song for the very end with the grimy closer “Erect Reflection (Abyss of Organic Matter).” Void of the hard-to-comprehend grunts for the first two-thirds of its running length, the listener is afforded the chance to be hypnotized by the repetitive drumming. It’s very “Hell Awaits”-ish in its build towards an explosive two-minute finish. The band has been known to do lengthy cuts in the past, but none of them have the dark magic that “Erect Reflection (Abyss of Organic Matter)” possesses.

Another byproduct of Profound Lore Records, Antediluvian puts out their strongest work to date in “Through The Cervix Of Hawwah.” The vocals and blending of instruments in the faster sections can make this record a difficult one to embrace initially. This album is atypical for the average death metal audience, as it can’t be considered traditional, nor can it be labeled of a technical or progressive nature. “Through The Cervix Of Hawwah” can’t be considered “feel-good” music, but dwells into the most primal of instincts to get its horrid message across.