Construct of Lethe embodies a constant limbo of underrating, often in cahoots with acts like Desolate Shrine or Lantern in that they lay delicate fingers upon dissonance and grime without diving headlong into them, oft sporting a blackened edge. Instead of buying into mimicry, Tony Petrocelly’s quartet Construct of Lethe has embodied a darkness all of their own, beginning with 2016’s Corpsegod, a raw and angular take on death metal, and perfected in 2018’s more triumphant Exiler, which was given the TYMHM treatment by the gone-but-unforgotten Kronos. First album in six years, A Kindness Dealt in Venom attempts to break their silence with an ambitious album designed as one continuous track with twelve distinct movements.
Construct of Lethe merely dabbles in dissonance and grime, but that doesn’t mean A Kindness Dealt in Venom is an easy or pleasant listen. Rather, there is a veil draped across its entire visage, ghostly and punishing in equal measure. Uncompromisingly bleak and haunting, it is an album you get lost in, and one you can be proud to blare at maximum volume, a challenger for fans of classic Morbid Angel, Immolation, or Hate Eternal, and for diehards of the more dissonant stylings of Noctambulist or Heaving Earth alike. Divisively more experimental and far more contemplative and divisive than its predecessors in a more pronounced doom presence and instrumental saturation, A Kindness Dealt in Venom nonetheless offers no reprieve.
A Kindness Dealt In Venom by CONSTRUCT OF LETHE
Construct of Lethe first and foremost attacks their third full-length with a sense of menacing organicity and miasmic fluidity – with complete shredding in mind. You have your more predictable death metal affairs, touched upon by blastbeats and chunky riffs a la Morbid Angel or Bolt Thrower, in tracks like opening movement “Artifice” or “Denial in Abstraction,” but the true highlights are feats of songwriting that revel in a more slow-moving and ominous pace, as the dissonant jangling saturating “Contempt” and the pulsing tribal elements of “I Am the Lionkiller” inject palpable dread. Longest track “Bete Noir” is an easy climax, its nine-minute breath oozing through pulsing death/doom beatdowns of raucous percussion, thick bass, and a dynamic with disintegration in mind. Eating at the ears like a more insidious but deadlier pyroclastic flow, the percussion acts like the hammering of the anvil while the sliding interchange between Morbid Angel riffs and Immolation blasphemy in the soundtrack of madness. “Labyrinthine Terror” and closer “Tension – There is Nothing for You Here” exemplify this lethal fusion likewise, recalling more high-minded assaults like Labyrinth of Stars or Sulphur Aeon. Construct of Lethe expertly balances a dissonant death template with old school death shredding in an album that mightily succeeds in both.
Truthfully, there are no blatantly bad tracks aboard A Kindness Dealt in Venom, but the implications of its pacing and flow are questionable at best. Construct of Lethe’s first act up until “Denial in Abstraction” will have you believe that this is a pure death metal foray (like Corpsegod or Exiler) but when the second act begins you are unwittingly met with a series of build-ups with little capitalization. Tracks “Flickering,” “I Am the Lionkiller,” “Paroxysm as Pratmatism,” “Raw Nerve, Iron Will,” “Sacrosanct,” and “Tension – There is Nothing For You Here” are all instrumentals stacked in the latter half,1 and are likewise all incredibly brief affairs, the shortest “Sacrosanct” clocking in at less than a minute. I understand that Construct of Lethe composed this album as a single track with twelve movements, but this whiplash from instrumental to instrumental, with incredible dynamic builds leading to musical dead-ends, is a head-scratcher. It’s as if they included new vocalist Kishor Haulenbeek in the first half of the album then abruptly fired him before the second – even though the guy’s still employed. The flow is therefore problematic, as the first half of the album constitutes thirty minutes of the album’s forty-five. As “Bete Noir” stands as a potential SOTY, it puts all following tracks in its shadow – which sucks, because there are ten.
Construct of Lethe proves they are masters of their craft with A Kindness Dealt in Venom, but it’s almost entirely derailed by its odd tracklist. Especially when Petrocelly and company have never included an instrumental in Exiler or Corpsegod, it’s confusing why suddenly A Kindness Dealt in Venom features six of them – primarily in the second half. Don’t get me wrong, each track is fantastic, blending purist death metal with dissonant and avant-garde tendencies that never derail it due to organic production and songwriting. However, for an album that professes a cohesive whole, Construct of Lethe has never felt more disjointed. Bang your head while scratching it.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: constructoflethe.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/constructoflethe
Releases Worldwide: June 21st, 2024
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