9 songs in an abrupt 31 minutes, but when death metal is played this brutal, this is the perfect amount of time with the songs averaging a little over 3 minutes a piece.  “Swarm of the Serpents” starts rather quiet with the light guitars before you hear the distortion in the background and then right into a brilliant blast with Paolo laying down a nice high pitch scream and then right into a guttural.  Monster blasting and Devangelic have always reminded me of an early Deicide mixed with early Suffocation.  Regardless the song rips from beginning to end, with a little vocal layering in as well. “Upon the Wrath of Divinities” is up next and more blasting.  Some mid-paced parts with thunderous double bass and the 1.35 has a nice guitar solo, which incorporates some melodies over the blasting and mid-paced moments, while the grunting and growling is going on. The song continues to blast onward until the end.

“Eyes of Abzû” at the 2.36 part has quite the breakdown slam.  At this point I began taking sausage and pepperoni pizzas and throwing them at breakneck speeds across the city.  I made sure the edges were extra sharp so they could decapitate all the people hoarding and buying all the TP and paper towels and cleaning supplies for themselves, while my family and I struggle to find these items-fuck you assholes.  Anyway “Vomiting the Infected” fits quite nicely onto this album, with what’s going on in the world now.  The song has more thunderous double bass, slows down a but and then blast some more.  The 1.39 part meanders into a slower part, then into an old school death thrash beat before the blast.  The 2.04 part is awesome and then with the double tap of the snare drum right into a monster slam slowdown.  I swear to god I was swinging so hard during this part and I wound up falling down a slope of stairs right onto my butt.  This part is crazy good, but then is ripped from us too soon before right into more ferocious blasting madness.

The rest of Ersetu continues the same  Mainly stuck in 1,000 BPM blasting.  Don’t get me wrong I love brutal death metal and the Italian scene, however Devangelic could spread their wings a bit more by having a few slower moments to allow the songs to breathe more and have some more individuality.  Quite often on this a slow moments lasts only a few seconds before going right into the blasting and I wanted more heavier moments where the songs can become a bit more memorable-break some of the monotony up.  When you do that the blasting then has that much more power.  I love my blasting like the next person, but at this point, with a third album, I think Devangelic are pretty set in their ways.

In times like these when the world is going to shit I feel for my brothers and sisters in Italy and all over the world.  Sometimes throwing on 30 minutes of brutal death metal is what is needed to get you through a tough day and Ersetu really does offer up the brutality over and over again.  It’s a good album and the production is crisp and clean.  I would like them to just expand a little more on the songs for future albums, but really, at this time folks support the underground and buy everything Devangelic has to offer to help my paisans out!

However, the best term I can come up with for the band’s second album, is ‘unimaginatively brutal’. To some extent, Phlegethon does indeed deliver some total and unmatched gurgling brutal death metal, but it’s relatively uncreative in its sheer blunt force trauma.

The vocals of Paulo Chiti (who recently joined Antropofagus and is close to becoming the vocal equivalent of drummer David Billia) are down right sick, coming cross as classic, early Chris Barnes on steroids and the complete package of guitars, drums and bass are what you’d expect from a brutal death metal band from Italy residing on Comatose Music.

But it’s often brutality for brutality’s sake, and its not until Devangelic slow down a little bit you can appreciate how truly brutal they can be. Tracks like opener “Plagues of Obscurity”, “Manifestation of Agony”, “Of Maggots and Disease” and “Abominated Impurity of the Oppressed”  are standouts due to some short lived pacing and hefty slams amid the expected brutality. Other wise tracks like “Condemned to Dismemberment” (even with a short little slam tacked on the end), “Malus Invictus”, “Mutilation Above Salvation”, “Decaying Suffering”  and closer Asphyxiation upon Phlegethon” just kind of bleed into one long, indistinguishable,  downtuned, tippy tappy, gurgle fest, which there is nothing wrong with, but I like my broodle with some semblance of memorability here and there. Only piece meal interlude “Wretched Incantations” breaks up the monotonous but effective savagery.

Still, a worthy and expected title added to Comatose’s brutal library, I mean what was I seriously expecting?

This isn’t half-bad. This is actually pretty good. One of the best in this style even. Best since Pathology’s Age of Onset perhaps. We’re talking about the Disgorge-worship bands, mind you. This one isn’t as monotonous or dull. It’s actually crammed with quite a few variations and buildups leading to the standard breakdowns but the former is impressive. All of this happens without diminishing the speed (pretty much) or more importantly, the brutality. That can’t be touched. It’s a sin. Tamper with that and you’re out of the band or scene. Matti Way will unfriend you.

There isn’t a whole lot of technicality nor does the album have mind-boggling speed. It’s adopting the tried-and-tested method and playing it safe there. The music is rather intense though and rarely settles for something less than pulsating Suffocation riffing or at the most the massive Human Waste era chugging. The music is one-dimensional and there aren’t any surprising moments at all because the band doesn’t care. There are no leads, no sudden vocal variations; at the most there are well-timed breakdowns but nothing fancy at all. Out of the bunch “Disfigured Embodiment” stands out for its impeccable structuring within the self-imposed restrictions but on the whole, there aren’t really any hit songs because they’re all the same standard, more or less. It’s the album that determines the sound of this band and Devangelic has it all figured out.

This actually has members of a few bands I’m familiar with like Corpsefucking Art which has been around since forever, Putridity (good one), Stench of Dismemberment and the uber-slammy Vulvectomy. Thankfully this band doesn’t overindulge in slams and redundant (relatively) shit. It makes more sense than is the norm, and that’s what makes it click. The music has a good momentum going and brutality is top-notch. All performances are remarkable. Besides originality, Devangelic has everything including Disgorge worship. Brutal Death Metal fans are already queuing up ever since I mentioned that band name in the first paragraph. Nice.