After many years of silence, Belgium’s finest Exuviated, hailing from the southern part of the country (the French-speaking region), finally return with their second full length album, after 2011’s Morpheus Orphan. That debut was independently released, but this time the quintet did choose to work with Spinal Records, a label that did quite some great stuff for other Belgian acts (check out the reviews I did for bands like Deepshow or Drakkar, on April 29th 2015 and November 10th 2014 respectively).
The five-piece did record this new work at the Noise Factory Studio with Gerald Jans (Angakok, Channel Zero, Set The Tone, Neverlight Horizon, Fading Bliss and many more) taking care of recording duties and mix, and it got finally mastered in Sweden at the famous Fascination Street Studios with no one else but Jens Bogren (think: Gwyllion, Amon Amarth, Paradise Lost, Extol, Wall Of The Eyeless etc.). The result lasts for forty three minutes and comes with professionally executed (explicit) artwork.
Last Call To The Void brings forty three minutes of timeless Death Metal with quite some surpluses. The approach is rather rhythmic and melodic than morbid or blackened, but within this specific sub-current, Exuviated outstand for a couple of things. I am not referring to the sound alone, for this one is truly way above ‘the average’. Damn, such fabulous mix is rare lately, for balancing in between perfectly mixed elegance at the one hand, and a rough-edged nastiness at the other – the latter focusing on timelessness especially. But the song writing and execution too are just fabulous. Despite the not-that-speed-up-tempo (the speed varies from slow to fast, it’s that simple, with lots of changes in tempo), the intensity is quite prominent, and it does surely strengthen the very epic performance (with Unleashed and Amon Amarth acting like comparable entities, at least when referring to that combination of timeless Death Metal heaviness and highly epic melodies). The atmosphere is quite obscure, I think, partly caused by the addition of somewhat blackened vocals (along the guttural death grunts). Once in a while, the band also injects its stuff with Grind-oriented elements; listen for example to Black Empty Faces to understand what I am trying to say – cf. those ‘pig squeal’ screams. And what to think about the fine equilibrium in between timeless (read: traditional) structures and a modernistic execution? Indeed, it is marvellous, especially when noticing how fluent, natural and easy it seems to be for this band to play that way.
Pretty important, I think, is this. I am usually not that much ‘into’ catchier approaches of Metal in general. It’s like an inborn allergy for everything that sounds poppy or fake. Exuviated’s Death Metal surely is rather catching, and one cannot deny this. Even the decent sound production turns that way. But for one reason or another, it does not irritate at all when listening to Last Call To The Void. It has nothing to do with chauvinism (the band hails from Wallonia, and I am from the more intelligent, rich and educated Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, haha), but sometimes you got the feeling such things stand or fall; and in this case it stands like an erected fist deep into the behind of any mono-godly entity. There is a decent song writing, the compositions are professionally performed, the sound quality is more than all right, and the whole package fits. Therefor: my compliments to the band.