Album Review: Encephalic Angels by Killing of a Sacred Deer
Album Artwork for Encephalic Angels by Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Pained, discordant and meticulously symbolic in its deliverance, Killing of a Sacred Deer blindly unveil the third entry of their discography. With the limited amount of time given between announcement and the album dropping, it ties in beautifully with the claustrophobic, against the clock nature of all 11 tracks. Nerve-wracking in it’s introduction leaving you scrambling for solace, the driver of this calculated metallic hardcore/deathcore machine, Colter Cuthbertson, firmly stands the partition between his work in Psycho-Frame and Killing of a Sacred Deer with “Encephalic Angels”. A dark and twisted creation that pays tribute to the 90s and early 2000s horror cinematic universe and video game landscape of the same timeline, it’s a piece of unrequited retribution and exists as a tortured love letter to the past translated into the modern day.
There’s an understanding within music scenes that if you come from a particular community you can’t write music well enough for another i.e. people in hardcore bands can write metalcore but people in metalcore bands can’t write hardcore or vice versa (depending on which camp you’re in), and it’s not a criticism but it’s an extremely telling element of the song writing process that brightens the light bulb above our heads when we hear something that isn’t typical of said genre executed well. What Killing of a Sacred Deer have done since day one is ride against that narrative and “Encephalic Angels” displays this in showcasing how a record can feel confined and volatile without succumbing to current deathcore orchestra and heavy-for-the-sake-of-it tropes like in Chrome_Devil where a muffled frequency is introduced over a serrated breakdown. It’s unnerving and shifts the atmosphere without giving into the aforementioned fall-backs of today’s deathcore but undoubtedly works while working within the confines of said genre.
Cerebral Data Extraction heavily channels the mid-2000s Emmure sound with jagged lyrics and sharp cuts to minuscule moments of silence before hitting the next detonator in the sequence. [ascendance sequence] serves as the albums moment of perceived respite greeting us with a digitised voice harkening back to their hardcore roots as “all hope abandoned” echoes before plunging with the assistance of a bass drop akin to a bomb exploding into low-tuned breakdowns accompanied by ringing discords. Even with how well each section is written it’s still treated purely as an interlude with no vocals entering the track at any point. A wicked example of how less truly can be more.
Atmosphere takes heavy precedence throughout not only in sampling choices but also in features. In the lead single, Encephalic Angels,fromjoy make their mark by not only acting as a vocal feature but by translating their own transcendent sound into the track with ethereal keys and sampling.
Nick Chance of Burn Slow and Beautiful Child of God carries Of Melded Flesh on his back with a stellar performance through dance-stricken mosh parts while surrounded by CoD Zombies-esque soundings. And finally the voice of Church Tongue and co-vocalist of Psycho-Frame, Mike Sugars rounds out the features on 12.7mm From Death in which the title acts as a continuation from 24.5mm From Death on Killing of a Sacred Deer’s self titled from 2024. Having both vocalists vie back and forth over spiked riffs and snare pings while trading lyrics across their ever-growing vocal ranges is like experiencing an alternate universe of Psycho-Frame where they sold modded PS Vitas instead of Shibori Threads tracksuits.
Considering the previous outputs such as Serration and World of Pleasure it’s no surprise that Killing of a Sacred Deer would raise the bar one more time. Although not ascending to the heights of Psycho-Frame, as a passion project it allows “Encephalic Angels”to shine brighter as its own entity while challenging other bands within their space to evolve and improve across the board like they so evidently have in such a short timeframe.
FFO: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, fromjoy, Tracheotomy, Psycho-Frame, Chamber
SCORE: 8/10
Encephalic Angels is out everywhere on Friday 11th September, released via Wax Vessel Records.
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