I can add Poland’s Terrestrial Hospice to the list of bands I’ve never heard of that have more than one album under their bullet belts. It’s nothing new. I thought I was well-versed in Black Metal bands… until I started doing reviews which quickly taught me that I don’t know jack shit.
Terrestrial Hospice have been in existence since 2018 and have three full-length albums (including this one) Indian Summer Brought Mushroom Clouds (2020) and Caviary to the General (2023). Neither of which I have heard, so I’m going in blind here.
Omnicide: Chapter I starts off subtly enough. It’s a bit gentle, lulling you into a false sense of security. Then “Phosphasc Salvation” hits like a ton of bricks with a nice acoustic guitar intro that goes on for a solid two-minutes before a very Bathory “Destroyer of Worlds”-ish track begins to beat you and that’s before the blasts kick in, it strides along pretty confidently. There’s some epic shit going on around the six-minute mark, when this totally unrelated riff comes out of nowhere and elevates the song to this two-minute level for the solo.
Omnicide: Chapter I pours on the atmosphere like a black rain. “The Couloir of Despair” and “Call of the Void” bring to mind more of a Bathory meets Dimmu Borgir Black Metal attack. Whereas “Serpents in the Grass” and “Menace” hover on the cusp of Behemoth and Gorgoroth. I can picture that fancy chef guy sprinkling the band influences all over this album and Terrestrial Hospice make their sound not overly derivative of their peers. Which is a good thing because this album could have been horrible and not make me want to listen to it ever again.
“Depraver (Black Invocation)” has a lot of that atmosphere that I was talking about. It’s hard-hitting, and that’s really all you can want from a hellish blasphemy. The production could have benefited from a bit more emphasis on the drums in that they are sort of buried in the mix and when we’re talking about Inferno on drums, they need to be loud as fuck.
“Drowning Spirit” and “The Gospel of Obedience” finish the album with two elite flourishes. Both go heavy on the ambiance, and ratchet the brutality up for the last hurrah. All in all, I’d say that Terrestrial Hospice has done a super solid job with Omnicide Chapter 1, as it doesn’t reinvent anything; it’s good on its own merit.
So if you enjoy Gorgoroth, Dimmu Borgir and even some Thunderbolt, then you should trample orphans to make sure you get this album.
