Convulsing – Perdurance [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]

If you’re not familiar with Australia’s Convulsing, you’ve likely been exposed to mastermind Brendan Sloan’s impact on underground extreme metal. Alongside serving as bassist/vocalist of Altars (beginning with 2022’s Ascetic Reflection), guitarist of cinematic post-rock act Dumbsaint, and one-man show behind dissonant death/black distortionist Convulsing, he has contributed in some way or another to acts like Greytomb, Cosmic Putrefaction, Defacement, Gonemage, and Nightmarer. Convulsing remains his flagship project, and after two excellent LP’s Errata (2016) and Grievous (2018) of consecutively higher praise and a fantastic split with Siberian Hell Sounds, we are finally met with a gem of dissonant death metal after a six-year absence, an iconic record and monolithic sound steeped in nuance and imbued with dynamics, contrast, and texture: Perdurance.

What makes Perdurance such a resounding and enduring success is its ability to attack with intensity and dissonance that outdoes the best of its genre-mates. Warped rhythms are graced with staggered riffs and blazing percussion, as Convulsing explores every nook and twist of a rhythm and melody until its inevitable conclusion is happened upon in tragic and fatal fashion. Dissonant leads are the guide of Perdurance, providing scenic vistas to punishingly heavy riffs while reminding listeners of the inevitable doom that awaits. Like this year’s Ulcerate, the devastation is beautifully nuanced and dynamics are secured, giving a sense of freedom, sentience, and lushness amid the relentless darkness and discordance. Tempo-abusing, blastbeat-wielding, and heavy as mountains, the more immediate offerings (“Pentarch,” “Flayed,” “Shattered Temples”) offer this weight in pulverizing chuggy progressions, with a lurking monstrosity and humanity beneath its processions somehow more mammoth than its ten-ton riffs.

perdurance by convulsing

Beginning with “Inner Oceans,” we are graced with Convulsing’s massive sense of crescendos and atmospherics. A slow burn guided by the leads, the riffs are explored more subtly and incrementally – leading to a sense of immense claustrophobia and suffocation. Beginning delicately and organically, the tracks warp and shift while constantly growing in size and intensity, leading to what feels like cave walls closing in. The organicity suggests a warmth unexpected in this breed of death metal, as lush progressions morph to menacing tones seamlessly (“Endurance”), while devastation and grandiosity are the killing blow for natural growths and crescendos (“Inner Oceans”). The episodic nature of closer “Endurance” is aptly climactic and cinematic, its different three-minute portions threaded together with lush and yearning progressions slightly twisted to uncanny valley’s version of the heartfelt, amplified by brief passages of clean vocals and punkish beats.

Perdurance shows that Sloan remains at the top of his game – Convulsing cements itself as one of the best offerings of underground extreme metal and death metal in general. The second you think you’ve heard a progression or passage before, Sloan distorts it with the precision of a mathematician and the ambition of a madman. It never neglects punishment or overstays its welcome, and every twist and turn feels beautifully executed and stunningly methodical. Even the cleanly sung bonus track Porcupine Tree cover “A Smart Kid” feels at home following “Endurance.” Reflected in its evergreen title, Perdurance represents an immortal statement in dissonant death metal and extreme metal in general: ceaselessly brutal, meticulously crafted, and indubitably iconic.

Tracks to Check Out:1 “Flayed,” “Inner Oceans,” “Endurance”

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