The extreme side of metal is quite saturated now - while the pioneers have definitely made their name, it's very easy now to get lost in the massive heap of releases. Solus Ex Inferis is a technical/brutal death metal project consisting of extreme musicians like Marco Pitruzzella (Lord Marco) on Drums, Dave Smith on Guitars, Sean Martinez (Decrepit Birth) on bass and Sahil Makhija (Demonstealer). With the aim to create extreme metal, the band has already released an EP and a full-length release last year. This year, the boys are back with yet another EP called “Exogenesis” and have dropped their first single “Critical Failure”. So without any further ado, let's jump into the discussion.
“Critical Failure” starts off with bone crushing opening featuring the signature blast beats of Lord Marco and nasty riffs of Dave Smith, instantly reminding of Braindrill and even Neurogenic. The gnarly tone to the guitar tone, aided by the technical elements accounts for a caveman sounding experience! Apart from the rapid blast beats, the grooves on the drums account for some chuggy headbanging moments.
The vocals by Sahil Makhija mainly consist of low-ranged vocals and gutturals. The vocals seemed a bit buried in the mix, but you can feel the layerings in several parts.The two guitar solos in the song complement each other - one in the first half of the song, being melodic to its core (almost reminding me of Equipoise guitar phrasings) while the other being more technical with shreds and sweeps. Not to forget to the guest solo by Matias Quiroz (Bleak Flesh). Few fun moments include the start-stop based choppy riffs in the midway.
Firstly, this song is not for everyone - the level where Solus Ex Inferis is headed with their musicianship accounts for very complex song-structure. The drums in the song shines throughout the running minutes and the kit sounds absolutely clean and amazing (the snare specially). The guitar tone could be a bit more polished in my opinion, which just feels a bit uncomfortable to my ears by today’s standard. In Spite of these minor bits and pieces - the song absolutely works fine for me. Though the track has been marketed as Technical Death, I would prefer to keep it under the tag of Brutal Death Metal! Their EP drops within a few weeks now, and let’s see what the band has kept stored for us.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Website: https://www.facebook.com/SolusExInferis
Genre: Brutal Death Metal / Technical Death Metal
Worldwide Release: March 11th, 2022.
