Rating: 8.4

Country: Greece

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Neurotic Records

Track list:
1. Descending the Mind's Abyss
2. An Eerie Aspect of Us... Drowning
3. This Cold Funeral [mp3]
4. The Perfect Disease
5. Imprisoned in Apocalypse
6. Forsake My Bleeding [mp3]
7. Dark One Surreality
8. Virus Detected
9. Filming Our Graves
10. Embrace the Abstract
11. All Perceived Nothing
12. When Landscapes Bled Backwards

Band Website: Sickening Horror

Sickening Horror - When Landscapes Bled Backwards

George Antipatis - Guitars, Vocals
Ilias Daras - Bass
George Kollias - Drums

There has always been a disparity between the enormous popularity of metal in Greece and its limited spawning of high quality extreme metal acts. The raw material is there, the seeds of rebellion core to metal's existence, as well as the devotion and desire. But somehow this source of civilisation has looked to outsiders for inspiration, such that you'd be hard pushed to find even a couple of Greek tomes in any randomly chosen Top 100 death metal albums poll on the internet. Luckily, two very different post-modern bands have bubbled up from the depths with their new albums: Septic Flesh and Sickening Horror. Whereas the former is minimalistic but colossal bombast, the latter is a multi-layered and devious artefact of effervescent unholiness. When Landscapes Bled Backwards is as abstract as the title sounds, with the best description being a kind of aerated Immolation. The anaerobic, stifling and murky machinations of the longstanding US band have not so much been overturned but viewed from a different angle. But that is just a fraction of the tale.

The first indications that something unusual is gestating happen during the late stages of "Imprisoned in Apocalypse" that incorporates bass and drum breakbeats then a gravity-blast ridden melodic outro. "Forsake My Bleeding" is the first triumph for the album; a lurching spiky bloodsucker of a track with sick sliding guitars and apparently creepy fingerstyle fretless bass that pushes its way into the foreground (for a satisfying change) in persistently warped fashion, contrasting vividly with frantic phases. It is a song that resists fragmentary analysis like some parasitic worm evading death by knife. The memorably charismatic "Dark One Surreality" sees many facets of the SH personality and includes some Azagthothian groove and drum beats not heard in Kollias' more famous outfit, Nile. The next highlight is "Embrace the Abstract", a dissonant, dense and rakish atonal monster that is so audacious in its execution that Atheist, Pavor and Gorguts influences seem a distant secondment to the beast itself. There are more weirdly original riffs in this one song than most bands' entire back-catalogue. An atmospheric outro pacifies those jangled synapses, only to be shredded again for the title track.

The album's only weakness is that all the best stuff is after the halfway mark, but generally Sickening Horror have nailed parsimony in their high-tech compositions without sacrificing that grotesque organic feel. Greater levels of disgust and revelation are guaranteed for the future and, furthermore, the extra sales generated by Kollias' presence mean a great many fans loyal to Nile (and Immolation too) will find themselves being drawn to this invigorating trio that have the considered potential to eclipse both of these death metal titans in the very near future. Seriously.

May 30th, 2008