The Luminous Apex - HYALOPHAGIA (Review)

As obscure the term and its meaning might sound - Hyalophagia has existed for some time now. With the musical prowess of Collis Ciavola and fronted by Rob Allen, the band did release their debut album “Reliquiae” back in 2018. Fast forward to four years and the boys are back, yet again with their technical brand and hardcore caps on, in form of their sophomore album “The Luminous Apex”. 

The album opener “THE SACRED DUTY” throws in some absolute sludgy, doomy cacophonies to gear up your mind, before flowing into the powerful “THE INFINITE SPIRIT” - being fast and catchy to its core while delivering breakdown-ish riffs mixed with dissonance. The band does not fear to show their mathcore skills, even going full Dillinger Escape Plan mode for a few guitar phrasings. The powerful hardcore vocal styles does add to the madness and energy the band puts forward to. Tracks like “THE ETERNAL ENEMY” and “THE CALM OF INFINITY” show a shift towards the “thall” realm. With a lot of open dissonance chords while having a djent quality to itself, the tracks paints a very dark, gloomy, sludgy atmosphere in the minds of the listeners, much like Humanity’s Last Breath. 

While “THE INSATIABLE FIRE” might put forth a more hardcore energy, the fast techy elements and the choppy riffs incorporated showcase the band’s undisputed control on its musicality. “THE VITAL BREATH” is another track of the same hardcore nature, having a lot of breakdowns with dynamic tempo shifts that will surely break some bones of your neck from intense headbanging. “THE TOTALITY OF ACTION” showcases the band’s take on brutal death metal elements, while channeling the groove beneath all the madness throughout. Not to miss the outro which displays some intense chromatic riff-action. The first half of “THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE” channelizes brutality to its best - with intense blast beats and double bass on drums and captivating riff, while slowly flowing to a more grindcore realm with a lot of unpredictable passages. The last half really takes you on an atmospheric transcendental voyage with its down-tempo ambient soundscape and chanting clean vocal passages.

The first thing you notice, when compared to Hyalophagia’s debut album “Reliquiae” is that, the runtime of the album has decreased, with many songs being hardly 2-3 minutes long. While this is not uncertain from any grindcore record, the shorter runtime does benefit the band. Its harder to guess on what part of metal spectrum does “The Luminous Apex” lies, when the lines between tech-death and hardcore is almost blurred out while also showcasing a varied influences from many genres. Hyalophagia’s greatest power is showing creativity through their dissonance power, unlike other associates of the genre creating mind-numbingly generic techy music. In short - Hyalophagia is unpredictable and wacky and “The Luminous Apex” is the living proof of it.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Website: https://www.facebook.com/hyalophagia

Genre: Hardcore Technical Death Metal

Worldwide Release: April 1st, 2022.