Back in 2023, I reviewed Dead and Dripping’s Blackened Cerebral Rifts, and I was pretty rough on it. I didn’t like it/ didn’t get it, what-fucking-ever. Anyway, today I went back to it before listening to Nefarious Scintillations, and goddammit, I started to like it.

I blame my fellow scribes for my newfound love for Deathcore. They all listen to it… a lot… and share songs… a lot. So it’s only natural that it would start rubbing off on me, plus attending recent Deathcore shows by Distant, Ingested, and Carnifex has made me appreciate the sub-genre more.

Dead and Dripping is the lovechild of one Evan Daniele from New Jersey. This is actually his fourth full-length album, following Blackened Cerebral Rifts (I reviewed that album here if you care to read it) and I don’t know what happened between that album and Nefarious Scintillations, but holy fucking shit this is a banger. I mean that sincerely, I like it better than the previous album, and I’m about to talk about it.

Straight away, I need to get the length of the song titles out of the way… they’re still ridiculously long. I reviewed a Black Metal album by Esoctrilihum, and the song titles on that were a full paragraph. It’s still a bit annoying, but it is what it is, and my griping about it isn’t going to change it.

“Nefariously Scintillating Through Vacant Galactic Reservoirs” starts off with some killer riffing and blasting drums, and the first thing I notice is a better production than Blackened Cerebral Rifts had. This shit is crisp as a fucking Dorito, the drums sound great and so do the other instruments, hell even Evan’s vocals got better. There’s pig squeals galore, and while it’s not Gutalax they’re still entertaining as fuck.

Another thing about Nefarious Scintillations is that the songs are slower, not by much; there’s still blasting, but it is reigned in and more precise, not everywhere and nowhere. “Horrifying Glimpses of Inconceivably Demented Cityscapes”, “Pestilent Hints of Darkened Malodorous Vibrations” pummel you with sledgehammer beats and huge pinched harmonies that hang in the air like blood spray. The latter has vocals so deep that they sound like they came from the dude’s bowels, and there’s a killer sparring between the guitars and drums around the 5:15 mark.

“Swollen Torsos Adorned with Pustulating Hexagonal Crania” pulses with a Carcass vibe, sort of Symphonies of Sickness, melded with Last Days of Humanity’s… anything really. This is the longest track on the album, and it uses every second of those nine minutes to have your ears torn off and the holes fucked raw.

Next up is “Sickeningly Vague Anatomical Silhouettes”, and it’s a knuckle dragger of a track with this brain-drilling riff that swirls and feeds back on itself. The drums are all over the place on this one, scattered blasting, mixed with enough rolls and fills to give you sea sickness. “Spontaneous Recollections of Unwitnessable Atrocity” is a more “traditional” Death Metal song. The structure is there to put you in traction.

“Seeping Through Ancient Transdimensional Corridors” has some Morbid Angel feeling guitars, sort of Formulas Fatal to the Flesh skronkiness near the end. Album closer “An Utterly Tenantless World of Aeons-Long Death” shreds its way across a soundscape of dirty riffs scattered above the crashing drums and bass.

I can feel confident in saying that Nefarious Scintillations is a solid Deathcore album. Everything sounds phenomenal, and this is a way better album than Blackened Cerebral Rifts in so many ways. If you like the bands I’ve mentioned, in addition to Pig Destroyer, Putrid Pile, and the mighty Internal Bleeding. Then you should grab this badass motherfucker. Blow your fucking speakers with this one!

[Visit the band's website]

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