Demoniacal Genuflection was a death metal band based out of Houston, Texas, who released a series of splits, demos, and one full-length album in their ten-year existence. The band called it quits in 2015. This compilation titled Darker Lamentation contains their 2010 debut album The Ministers of Lamentation and four songs which were included on the 2012 Limb Splitter II comp released on Ossuary Industries.

13 songs in an hour, and the label changed up the song order on the comp. This is a reissue, and there was no remastering done. Everything sounds great, but I will say a remastering would have evenly leveled out the sound, since the songs on the album are lower than the Limb Splitter comp. Demoniacal Genuflection was not your typical brutal slam TXDM-sounding band you would expect. They played more of a 90s era dark death metal style, calling to mind Incantation, Deicide, and even Immolation with some of the dissonance.

Opening with a song from the comp, “False Dawn”, there is a killer crunchy riff, with Immolation-style pinch harmonics. While from NY, Immolation’s pinch harmonics were always different than other NY brutal bands, like Suffocation for example. Regardless, the song gets into a gallop, then back into the mid-paced heaviness, which even calls to mind Rottrevore. The song gets more atmospheric with a guitar solo right outta the James Murphy stylized technical prowness handbook. Deep and powerful vocals and excellent drum rolls, in between these slow and atmospheric moments. This was an interesting song to place first on here, as I would have gone more for the jugular and opened with the “Lay Down on Your Cross”, the next song, another one from the comp. This tune immediately starts with a blast beat, and it’s ferocious AF. The slower atmospheric part erupts, before some doomy elements knock us out. The speed jumps out of the starting gates again, with some dissonance to the guitars – very Immolation inspired.

I’ll skip around a bit, since that is how this comp was put together. There are two covers on here. One is “Baphomet’s Throne” (Samael cover). This sounds evil and a great homage to the original. Even better is the Scattered Remnants cover of “Amidst the Afterbirth”, a song off the 1995 EP Inherent Perversion. One of my favorite EPs ever from one of the best underground death metal bands. The love this song is given, I swear, the beginning of the song, I actually thought it was the original. Jason Hendershaw and Ron Miles, if you have not heard this cover, you will appreciate the respect they gave one of the best songs you fellas wrote. The pinch harmonics are there, the speedy dissonant moments, the bludgeoning heaviness. Killer cover!!

“Ordained in Repugnance” is a great song from the debut album. There are keyboards on the full length, which I failed to mention earlier. They create ambience and at points, the songs come across as a séance. Weird to describe, but once you hear, you will understand. This song is slow, meanders into doom death metal, and plods and plods. This is true organic heaviness. Nothing is overproduced, and this is death metal played in the ‘old-fashioned and pure way. “Hail the Serpents of Eden” is an excellent display of that Incantation/Immolation mix. There’s even some Deicide dual-layered vocals happening. So mixing in these top-tier death metal bands, yes, this is a winner. There are some stop-and-start blasting going on, then abruptly slowing down. This will rattle your brain from here to kingdom come. The title track, from The Ministers of Lamentation album, is another doom death song, which is excruciatingly heavy.

Darker Lamentation is an excellent release, and I am happy Brian, at Ossuary Industries, was able to bring Demoniacal Genuflection to the masses out there. True organic and most of all evil heaviness. My proclivity with comp releases is when there is more of an order to the songs, as related to the releases. I would have put the songs in their original track order from the debut album first. Then the songs, in original track order from the comp, afterwards, especially with the sound discrepancies previously mentioned. Overall, the original album was never actually truly made available years ago, and all 13 songs on this release are my kind of evil death metal. This is a must-have!!

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