Ignominy – Imminent Collapse
March 10th, 2023
Atmospheric / Dissonant Death Metal
Transcending Obscurity Records
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I had been hearing rumblings about a death metal band from Quebec called Ignominy over the past year thanks to some friends of mine who are very deeply invested in the worlds of both extreme metal and prog. It was only recently, however, that I found out the band had released their first full length album in 2023, and so I decided to check it out. Montreal is of course a city known for the quality of the technical death metal that has emerged from here over the years. Some might say its our own regional scene in the same way the Bay Area is known for thrash or Florida is known for OSDM. That said, it’s always cool when a new tech death band emerges from here but doesn’t quite adhere to the mold set out for them.
Ignominy start this record off with a bit of a cliche. The band noodles around a groove that sounds like its crackling through a loudspeaker at a supermarket, all before the actual song drops and kicks you right in the face. It’s an old trope but a good one, in my opinion. It adds an extra flair to the song “Frantic Appeasement”, and makes the rest of the track hit that much harder thanks to the comparison in volume. From then on we’re treated with frantic drums, dissonant guitars, and deep, guttural vocalizations.
The vocals from Alexandre Desroches are throaty and raspy, emerging from the deepest catacombs of the chest cavity as they boil forth alongside the chaotic, churning instrumentation. In many ways the vocals here are pretty standard death metal fare, and there isn’t much to say about them other than that they fit the kind of music that Ignominy makes perfectly. It’s nothing game changing, but it also doesn’t have to be. Desroches knows what fits the music his bandmates are making, and adjusts accordingly, riff to riff.
Speaking of riffs, the guitar and bass work on here from Philippe Gariépy and Alexandre Préfontaine respectively are absolutely fantastic. While much of the work contained on this album would straddle the definition of “progressive” and “technical” that isn’t to say that it isn’t catchy or memorable. In fact this record contains a great number of excellent, infectious hooks provided by the guitar and bass that have sunk their teeth into me and asked me to come back for more. It’s odd that an album finding itself within the dissonant death metal subgenre is as infectious as this one, yet here it stands, ready and waiting for me to give it yet another spin.
The drums from Marc-Antoine Lazure similarly are surprisingly catchy in and of themselves. When Lazure locks in with Gariépy and Préfontaine for some of the righteous grooves that this album provides it’s all I can do to not headbang. So many of the grooves on this record, like the opening of “Visceral” for example, are absolutely begging you to rip your neck from its socket. There’s so much variety to be found on here, from slower and super-intricate sections of plodding double bass and quick rolls on the ride cymbal to explosions of cacophonous blast beats. Lazure knows how to keep the listener guessing with each new beat, and is a big part of why this album sounds as varied as it does.
The production here is excellent as well. Not resting into typical modern death metal polish, the performance by Ignominy here sounds shockingly genuine. Every chug and dissonant wail of the guitars feels real, and the drums, for as loud as the kick drum is, sound so powerful and present. I love it when you can tell that a record was performed by actual humans, and that’s definitely the case for this one.
Imminent Collapse is a fantastic debut record from a band that has already made a name for themselves in the Quebec extreme metal underground. Everything here sounds so spacious, ominous, terrifying, and yet magnificently complex and emotive. It’s just that the emotions being expressed are those of madness, death, and the complete unraveling of the fabric of reality. If this is just the start then I can’t wait to hear where Ignominy will go from here. They’ve surely got a lot more killer death metal in store for us where this one came from.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10
Great
Favourite Tracks:
“Frantic Appeasement”
“Defaulting Genetics”
“Visceral”
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 