My relationship with Horrendous can best be described as “casual”. I vaguely recall exploring their first few albums, likely at the recommendation of the Decibel album reviews section (Who also steered me wrong with the recommendations of Deafheaven’s Sunbather and Pallbearer’s Foundations of Burden, but I forgive you Albert.) It was also via Decibel that I first saw Horrendous live, as the opening band on the 2017 edition of their namesake tour. I don’t remember being overly floored by their set, but I recall it being an adequate warmup for Midnight and Obituary, before the evening was ruined by Kreator playing an “anything but the classics” set.
Anyways, unless my memory is failing me (and it seldom does), I don’t think I’ve listened to a note of Horrendous since that night roughly 6 and a half years ago. They released an album in 2018 entitled Idol, that for some reason or another I never got around to checking out. So forgive me purists for skipping a chapter and diving head first into their latest, Ontological Mysterium. Now perhaps I should’ve explored Idol before this one, because while Horrendous’ brand of death metal always lie on the proggy side, I don’t remember them fully crossing over into prog territory and placing death metal in the background.
Now there’s nothing wrong with this per se. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not some neckbeard elitist who shudders at the idea of death metal striving to be more than the Scream Bloody Gore formula rehashed for the two zillionth time. If I were, I wouldn’t be so fond of Opeth. I do, however, call it like I hear it, and while I’m sure every online metal journalist under the sun will label this “album of the year”, Ontological Mysterium comes off as too overblown for its own good (AKA Master of Puppets syndrome).
This isn’t to say there aren’t some redeeming moments. The opening “Chrysopoeia (The Archaeology of Dawn)” is so outright spastic and packed with everything from Voivod tech-thrash to early In Flames melo death, that you’re bound to find something of merit in there. “Preterition Hymn” stands out as well, with its bleak melodies and regal deadliness recalling ’90s Opeth. As for the rest of this album, well, where do I begin? When they aren’t throwing in senseless prog metal instrumentals, Horrendous borrow heavily from the Killing Technology (“Neon Leviathan”), Focus (“Ontological Mysterium”), and aforementioned Master of Puppets (“Cult of Shaad’oah”) playbooks. In other words, all the prog extreme metal tropes you’ve heard before, but modernized for hipster headbanger consumption.
At the end of the day Ontological Mysterium suffers from lack of direction and flat-out overindulgence. I know the latter descriptor is bold coming from somebody who worships at the altar of Styx, but at least The Grand Illusion sounds like it was written and recorded by the same band. Ontological Mysterium boasts enough musical talent to qualify as higher than *ahem* “horrendous”, but falls short in the grand scheme of things, playing like a mish-mash mixtape of metal for people who don’t like metal.
4 out of 10
Label: Season of Mist
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
For fans of: Cynic, Opeth, Voivod