Omegon is Wormed’s fourth album and I look at their releases as extremely special.  They are one of my favorite brutal death metal bands who really have captured that space/science fiction formulaic style excellently.  9 songs in 41 minutes, sees Wormed expand on their sound, progressing with their longest album and longest song, the title track, which ends the album.

“Automaton Virtulague” has those usual Wormed space opening noises, right before the bludgeoning blasts and Phlegeton’s putrid vocals are in excellent form.  The song blasts and smashes and check out the signature time changes around the 1.20 marker.  Discordant, groovy and then right into a slower section with complex rhythms.  The signature Wormed blast ruptures eardrums again then back into the groove, then back into the double pounding blast.  Quite an album opener – loving this so far!!

“Pareidolia Robotica” starts with a robust mid-paced sound, with stop-and-start moments. It’s not quite djent sounding, but not too far removed from that style either.  The song gets going with a blast and amazing vocals, once again and insane drumming.  This song showcases the band expanding on their already complex sound as they cascade towards a galaxy, far far away.  There are some gravity blast moments as well, getting into some old-school Origin moments.  Very interesting and well-thought out song.

“Virtual Teratogenesis” begins with some off-kilter drumming and overall this yet another complex song.  Whereas some of Wormed’s prior efforts may have caused the listener to pay close attention to many of the rhythms and swirling song structures, Omegon, will test your limits at times.  Make no mistake this is still Wormed to the proverbial T, however, due to the increased shift in complexity, some of the memorable parts of Wormed are sacrificed.  Regardless, that ethereal blasting and style at the 3-minute moment, on this track, is in fact vintage Wormed and even with some Fallujah like elements, this song is terrific.  At over 7 minutes the title track ends the album with a very atmospheric and slow burn buildup with soft music and space sounds.  That lasts pretty damn short as the ferocious non-linear blasting erupts and explodes chest cavities.  The killer groove early on will create havoc in pits and the blasting about halfway through the song is so tight and on point it will pierce your cheek like an icepick.  The song slowly teeters towards the end, just as it began, and the ethereal atmospheric trancelike moments continue until the song truly ends.

Omegon is an outstanding album, from Wormed.  Yes this sucker will test your listening limits, because the band has incorporated progressive and even more off-kilter/discordant elements into their repertoire.  This does sacrifice the memorable factor during certain songs, however I keep going back to this album, because I discover new sounds each time.

To me, that is a winner of an album, and most importantly I like those new elements.  Production-wise, this has a very clean sound and crisp, which is important when it comes to recording complex space vortex brutal death metal.  This is quite the banger of an album!!

“Remote Void” starts with some alien screeching feedback before the tune blasts our face off and V-Kazar doing an admirable job with his punishing drum work.  Very technical in that department.  Phlegeton sounding punishing with his gurgling even sounding more fierce than the past albums, if you can believe that.  Guillemoth providing the nice undercurrent of bass heaviness and Migueloud is a genius with the guitar riffing style.  There are some monster blasting and stop n start on a dime moments to get the blood flowing and the minute mark with the insane straightaway blasting is so damn brutal and fierce, as the song fades out.

“Cryptoubiquity” is a fun word to say over and over and the song is super brutal.  Monster drum fills and vocals that just plain rule.  The slow down at the 50 second mark is super intense with the raging double bass and then going into a double pending beat before going into the grind vortex blast.  The 1.35 part is an off signature time change that for a brief second had me think of Voivod.  The song goes into an ethereal, ambient trance ending before “Bionic Relic” wakes you up with a quick slap to the head.  Monster guitar riffing and vicious vocals arrangements.  The 1.32 slow down again has me thinking for a moment of Voivod, but not for long before the punishing rhythm section takes over and bludgeons your body again and again and again and again.  This entire section has many sweeps and time changes and has this complex brutality to it that quite honestly only Wormed can pull off and still make it catchy.

“E-Xystem://Ce” starts strange like it’s going to be an instrumental but it goes right into the blasting and the music then slows back down to a weird spoken word part and then back into monster blasting with extraordinary and original guitar work with more outstanding drum fills and more time changing blasting.  The song gets back into the vortex tornado whirlwind blasting and as the song is almost over rather than the song fading out the volume continues to get higher and higher in the mix, so watch it with earbuds in, it damn near blew my eardrums from here to timbuktu.

If you are a Wormed fan than Metaportal will be a hit with you.  For any fan of early Cryptopsy and just plain brutal, technical, original death metal-no one does it better than Wormed today.  The production on this ep is the loudest and most punishing to date.  All the instrumentation is super crisp, clear and punches you in the gut so that the fist goes through your innards and comes smashing through your back spinal column.  This is savage, bludgeoning and Wormed continues to be in heavy rotation with me-all of their albums.  They are in a league all their own and Metaportal is an out of this world release, essential release.

I was fortunate to catch the band live on an incredible tour with Cognitive and Condemned.  I hung out with the band and had a real good time with them and finding out Phlegeton and the gang were Internal Bleeding fans was a bonus.  Exodromos was so outstanding, garnering many new fans and their tour stints in the US, no doubt got them some much needed promotion, seeing the band getting picked up in 2015, by Season of Mist.  Here we are with Krighsu, more intense sci-fi inspired brutal and outlandish death metal, with a once again eye-catching album cover.  So how does this album fair, with respect to past Wormed albums?  Read on, young Skywalker, to find out….

“Pseudo-Horizon” comes blasting through, after a short atmospheric opener, with some devastating drums and a monstrous killer guttural growl from Phlegeton.  Sure the old school Cryptopsy influences are still there, but Wormed still has their own original sound.  Monstrous blasts erupting all over the place.  The 2.19 killer off-kilter drumming and then double bass pounds before a slam groove hits and you’re picking up houses and tossing them across the country.  “A-Life Omega Point”, is also outstanding.  Incredible opening before going into a heavy groove, then back into a blast and then old-school vintage fast death/thrashing beat.  This song, well they all do, but this one has some fabulous drumming and yes the 1.15 mark is the Holy Shit part.  Isolated slow killer guitar riff, before going into a monstrous blast that gets into Originesque territory.  Killer cymbal hits at the 1.50 part and then some dreamlike spacey guitar melodies at like the 2.15 part.  With more gurgling, bellowing going on, this tune rips from beginning to end.

Krighsu ends with the close to 7 minute, “Molecular Winds”.  High speed blasting begins before the killer slow part, but that does not last too long, before erupting into more ultra-brutality and then returning to the slower, heavier part.  The 1.07 part goes into an Ulcerate type of dark rhythmic blasting moment, that is truly spectacular.  Incredible drumming and the drum rolls and double bass are incredible.  The song alternates between space dream-like atmosphere, ultra- brutality blasting, killer grooves and just plain awe-inspiring muscianship, before bleeding out into an outro.  Just like Wormed’s last album, they add a little bit of coldness to their music, that at times, perhaps, has a bit of an industrial feel to certain musical/rhythmic patterns.  This is another highlight in originality that allows Wormed to further stand out from other bands in this genre.

The great thing about Wormed, is the band captures this sound live.  When I saw them, as I stood in the front, I was mesmerized at how tight they were and how they sound even more intense live.  Yes, Wormed have returned in a big freaking way.  May even be my top pick by the end of the year, depending how the Defeated Sanity hits me.  Wormed are one of the best brutal death metal bands out there.  I now place them in the upper tier.  I predict 2016 will see the band exploding and get on some major tours, by 2017.  This album wipes the floor with the majority of the bands out there.  And don’t even get me started on the song “Computronium Pulsar Nanarchy”.  One of the best tunes Wormed has churned out.  Krighsu is incredibly produced and I will wait to crown this their finest, but it is certainly their best produced and strongest song writing yet….Boy it sure sounds like it’s my favorite Wormed album…. Anyway;  Buy or Die multiple horrible deaths!!!!!

One of the most respected bands in the international death metal underground, WORMED has earned a well-deserved reputation as an undeniably extreme and creative force. The band exploded onto the scene with their cult 2003 debut, ‘Planisphaerium’. WORMED has since toured the world, playing in prominent international festivals as such as Maryland Deathfest (MDF), Neurotic Death Fest, SWR Barroselas Metalfest, Death Feast Open Air, Mountains of Death, Obscene Extreme Festival and more.

The band issued the following statement about the new collaboration with Season of Mist: “Wormed is really proud to announce the signing with the almighty label Season of Mist, a label with some of the bands that have influenced us throughout these years! Being part of this label is a big step in our career!”

Keeping in tune with their sci-fi lyrical themes and stunning, futuristic artwork, Exodromos is essentially a concept album.  Borrowed from their official website, the story goes something like this:  “Exodromos is a prequel of ‘Planisphaerium‘; the story tells about futuristic science concepts and chaotic visions of the last human left in cosmos, Krighsu. These are particularly in relation to the awakening of the “Chrym” once the last humans of the year 8K, called the Terrax, disappeared, and the known universe was absorbed by a quantum wormhole in an inverted multi-vectorial reionization. Krighsu will travel through xenoverses to found a new world with the human seed. The paradox: Krighsu is not the habitual human you all know.”

I’m not going to analyze these forward thinking concepts but I do appreciate the thought processes and dedication the band has put into cultivating these ambitious ideas into their sound.   Whether or not you choose to buy into the lyrical themes, Wormed do a great job creating a futuristic edge to their music.   An otherworldly, almost inhuman vibe is built through dissonant, mind-bending compositions, atmospheric touches and a sharp, highly technical approach.   The cold, clinical tones don’t sacrifice the warmer, human element at play and the production combines slicing sharpness with a beefier overall crunch. That endlessly irritating snare tone from the debut has been rectified and some of the overtly bullfrog-isms of the vocals have been slightly refined whilst remaining on the guttural (and one-dimensional) side of the equation.

Although the stellar production and stunning musicianship immediately stands-out, it’s the song-writing that lifts this album to another level of excellence.    Obviously playing incredibly fast, brutal and intricate death metal is the key agenda, but Wormed realize the importance of crafting interesting arrangements, mixing-up tempos and employing some punishing slam parts to give the material a catchier element and greater replay value.  With this they succeed in spades.  Sure it’s not quite Gorod or Sophicide levels of catchiness, but there are ample moments of crushing groove and techy ‘wow’ moments that stick in the memory bank.   Plus, fans of brutal death will enjoy Wormed’s chunkier, guttural delivery.

Numerous musical ideas and notes are crammed into each song, but the seamless execution ensures the structures flow in a simultaneously smooth and unpredictable manner without becoming too convoluted.   With the odd exception aside, the songs are generally sculpted into concise three and-a-bit minute timeframes.  This is another aspect of Exodromos the band gets right.  It’s a fine line with this dense style of highly technical, brutal death metal not to overcook the songs until they become monotonous or impenetrable.  Wormed have found the right balance through varied arrangements and by cutting the package down to a lean 33-minutes.   Opener “Nucleon” lays down some tight grooves, manic blasts and off-kilter rhythms in a tidy start to the album.   “The Nonlocality Trilemma” skilfully juggles supreme technical chops with gut-churning brutality and groove.   The dazzling, jazz-infected rhythms of the brutally warped “Spacetime Ekleipsis Vorticity”; the chunky double bass and stop-start rhythms of the short but sweet “Darkflow Quadrivium”; and the dizzying complexity and slamming grooves of “Techkinox Wormhole” are several other standouts in a fairly consistent offering.  Only the atmospheric spoken word meandering of “Solar Neutrinos” borders on the disposable.

With Exodromos, Wormed have delivered a tight, futuristic juggernaut of brutal, technical death metal.  And although their highly complex, choppy and bruising brand of death metal may not appeal to some listeners, for those inclined, Exodromos shapes as one of the benchmark death metal releases of the year.