Pnuema Hagion (Greek for Holy Spirit) is a duo ‘R’ on all instruments and vocals and Shane Elwell on drums) from Texas that have been around a while in acts like Amateur Podiatry, Covered in Flies, Endless Disease, Excantation, Flesh Consumed, Intestinal Disgorge, Liquid Viscera and others. they have a pretty good number of demos, splits and EPs under their belt, but this is their full length debut album.
On Voidgazer, they have locked into a murky Dark Descent Records style mixed with Ulsect, The Ominous Circle, The Dodecahedron, Nightmarer, Altarage type of thunderous ritualistic churn, and it’s pretty good stuff.
The album is only 27 minutes long, but it’s no filler, as all 9 tracks are short sharp 2 to 3-minute eruptions of molten, churning, blackened filth. The production is pretty hefty and not as purely icky as some of their peers, maybe in the Incantation area of guitar tone and mix. But riff wise, this in the same cavernous sewer with churning rumbling blasts like ‘Anticomsic Incantations”, “The Black Light” or “Drawn Down From the Stars”
However, where these guys really grab you are the numerous, lumbering moments that litter almost every track. Seriously, these are some black hole inducing lopes that will shake your being. Whether it’s the Second track “Summoning” (my personal favorite), “Timeless Darkness”, “Febrile Dreams” (another really nasty one), or monstrous closer “Primordial”.
A pretty impressive effort that arrived with little fanfare from a duo I don’t know much about but certainly, if they keep up their ability to deliver punishing slow burn lumbers, ill be on the lookout for future material, hopefully on CD.
