As a fan of metal in nearly all of its forms, I am acutely aware that finding new sounds in the heavier genres is becoming more and more rare. Lines between the microgenres blur as influences continue to overlap as new bands form with many bands sharing members and that DNA often follows them from one band to the next. Enter Plague Rider, one of the newest bands to appear on burgeoning metal label, Transcending Obscurity. Having garnered notoriety through their contributions to bands like Live Burial, Dybbuk, and Horrified, members of Plague Rider are now weaving together a form of death metal that is as vile as it is challenging. Their music’s original influences have been twisted and decomposed beyond recognition. There are traces of grindcore, technical death metal, progressive metal and more twisted together and wrung into foul concoction. Plague Rider is wresting the genre from its traditional constraints from the inside out, navigating its countless variations and progressions, undergoing metamorphosis from one style to another.
I am pleased that we are able to bring the world one of the first tastes of this forthcoming beast that is Intensities. Today we’re happy to bring you the video for “The Refrain.”
This twisting, turning, wrenching, and beautifully grotesque song spans almost ten minutes. The compositional prowess that is on display is staggering and while there are only a few similarities between the two, a touchpoint that kept rearing its head while listening to this song is that it often reminded me of Ingurgitating Oblivion. The level of confidence and competence required to map out a song of this magnitude (much less an entire album) is a rare thing in any genre of music, much less metal.
Intensities is shaping up to an exquisite display of malformed, experimental death metal that reaches into the most harrowing spaces of the mind when it releases on November 10, 2023. Be sure to swing by the Plague Rider‘s Facebook and give them a follow and head over to Transcending Obscurity‘s Bandcamp to pre-order the album as well as a host of merchandise options.
