Insidius – Vulgus Illustrata Review

By Lavender Larcenist

A Polish, blackened death metal record a day keeps the doctor away, or so I have heard. If so, Insidius (so tired of mispelled band names that make things impossible to search for) is your latest shot of hyper technical, searingly fast loud noises from the Poles. Quietly chugging along in the background, this Olsztyn-based fivesome has been producing solid blackened death since their debut, Shadows of Humanity, in 2016. While the album cover for Vulgus Illustrata may look like it contains some atmospheric depressive black metal, the eight tracks inside are nonstop meat grinders of chainsaw riffing with thick bass, otherworldly drumming, and pure rage. While Insidius plays with the familiar and the foundational, does Vulgus Illustrata survive comparison to its heavyweight counterparts like Dormant Ordeal and Behemoth, or is it dragged to the bottom, each unoriginal idea weighing it down like cinderblocks tied to a corpse?

For starters, Insidius knows what they are doing. They’ve toured for years alongside bands like Vader, Grave, and Nervosa, and Vulgus Illustrata is full of dizzying instrumentation throughout. Tomasz Choiński and Jakub Janowicz wield their guitars like two buzzsaw-toting murderous surgeons, hacking and slicing at every turn with savage tremolo riffs and tilting dissonance. “Orgiastic” leads with a stop-start staccato riff, morphing with the introduction of Łukasz Usydus’s pirouetting bass. Of course, a blackened death metal album would be nowhere without some absurdly technical drumming, and Michał Andrzejczyk is no slouch. Inhuman fills, insane blasts, and rolling rhythms bring cohesion to Vulgus Illustrata, making for an album more akin to a face pummeling than a headbangers ball. Lastly, Rafał Tasak offers a competent if unflashy performance with his barking ferocity and pitched screaming. While the register remains generally on the low end, he has that pushing force that hurts your diaphragm to listen to. Think Cannibal Corpse, Vader, and Immolation, and you have the right idea.

Insidius has all the individual elements, but each track can’t help but bleed into the next, and even at a tight thirty-eight minutes, Vulgus Illustrata can feel long. Where bands like Dormant Ordeal mastered atmosphere, lead-ups, and the ebb and flow of a great blackened death song, Insidius feels too focused on in-your-face brutality. There are much-needed breaks here and there, with some genuinely great atmosphere, such as on the intro to “A Darkness That Divides” or “Censure”, and the entirety of the album closer “Forge of Our Hatred”. Unfortunately, these are few and far between, like ballasts in a storm that leave you hanging on for dear life. I like a good pummeling as much as the next fool, but only when it is consensual.

Maybe it is my undying love of blackened, Polish death metal, but I feel like I have seen everything Insidius has to offer done better elsewhere. Behemoth has a lock on hating god and the bombastic, theatrical edgelord side of things. Dormant Ordeal has technicality in spades alongside great songwriting, incredible atmosphere, and hidden hooks for days. Bands like Hath and Olkoth show that you don’t need to be from Poland to make good blackened death, either, so competition is fierce. Insidius feels late to the party, all dressed up, but nobody is there. They are doing everything right, but it isn’t quite clicking.

To be fair, some of you sick freaks will like getting absolutely brutalized and love every minute of Vulgus Illustrata, singing along as Tasak screams “Shit, cum and blood paint the wall of your prison”. I am not here to rain on your parade, and I don’t want to undersell Insidius. Vulgus Illustrata is heavy, consistent, competent, and genuinely engaging at times, but it feels tired. Insidius has the talent and the energy, but someone needs to point their ballistic missile of blackened death in the right direction for a direct hit. If you are a superfan of the genre, you may get some choice cuts from this slab of beef, but even still, you are better off eating with the bands that brought you here. Another victim to hang from the 3.0 tree, let’s tie the noose and be done with it.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: insidiusblacklion.bandcamp.com/album/vulgus-illustrata
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #30 #behemoth #blackLionRecords #blackenedDeathMetal #dormantOrdeal #grave #hath #insidius #nervosa #nov25 #olkoth #poland #polishMetal #review #reviews #vader #vulgusIllustrata

Also for #ThursDeath:

#CultBurial: Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust

https://album.link/i/1824873472

#AtmosphericDeathMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal

FFO #DevenialVerdict #Dischordia #Olkoth

Imperishable – Revelation in Purity Review

By Tyme

As I prepare to flip the calendar over to what looks like a pretty stacked September,1 I took a moment to reflect on my Angry Metal August. Forays into the sump pit this month yielded several better-than-good releases that I was lucky enough to snag and pen words for. My final entry for this last month of summer2 comes by way of South Carolina’s Imperishable. Formed in 2020 as a side gig by Nile’s Brian Kingsland and Olkoth’s Alex Rush, Imperishable didn’t become a three-piece until 2023, when drum aficionado Derek Roddy (ex-Hate Eternal, ex-Malevolent Creation) entered the fold. Imperishable’s 2024 EP, originally titled Demo’s, caught the ear of Everlasting Spew Records, who signed on to release the band’s debut album, Revelation in Purity. With no question as to the metal cachet of its constituency, the only thing left for me to do was determine if Imperishable’s first outing would signal the end of my August hot streak.

With a blackened death metal heart, Revelation in Purity pierces several veils, tossing traces of groove, doom, and ’90s grunge into the mix. Within moments, album opener “Oath of Disgust” evokes strong Emperor vibes, its eddying riffs and clean, choral-like vocal section landing somewhere between the mighty Anthems3 and IX Equilibrium. These blackened moments are a red thread running throughout Imperishable’s death metal tapestry, expertly woven into a single style, rather than a collection of either-or compositions. As much as Olkoth and newer Nile (“Where Dead Omens Croon”) nestle in the nooks of Imperishable’s sound, there’s some Morbid Angel crouched in the crannies as well (“The Enduring Light of Irreverance”). Kingsland’s grasp of tension and melody, especially evident in his excellent solo work, provides a guitar tour de force of towering tremolos, whirlwind riffs, and bright, splashy chord harmonies (“Revelation in Purity,” “Spewing Retribution”). His vocals, whether gutturally growled, blackly screamed, or cleanly harmonized, are also impressively discernible as Rush’s sinister bass lines, crisp as Cliff Burton’s and full of malice, hold sway over Revelation in Purity’s nether realm alongside Reddy’s devastating drum work—a maelstrom of stormy snares, deadly double-kicks, and fancy fills.

Revelation in Purity navigates many twists, turns, and serpentine paths without getting lost, Imperishable’s songwriting filling the role of expert trail guide. As deftly merged as their black and death metal elements are, it’s the seamless incorporation of those disparate offshoots that helps Revelation in Purity stand out. On the heels of tremolodic leads and some chaotic verse accompaniment, “Exclusion Continuum” hits a nice little groove at the two-minute mark that continues as it slows to a very satisfying, chuggy crawl before re-igniting with one of Kingsland’s sustained yawps. And it’s the doomy atmospheres of “Iniquity,” with its “Where the Slime Live” feel, that, along with follow-up track “Where Dead Omens Croon,” incorporate vocal harmonies straight out of Alice in Chains’ Staley/Cantrell playbook of old, making this late round, one-two punch my favorite section on Revelation in Purity.

Imperishable dispels atmospheric, interludial frivolity by packing Revelation in Purity’s thirty-two-minute runtime with let-our-music-do-the-talking decisions, outperforming any of the recent output from their main gigs. Jamie King’s mix and master, though slightly muted, still allows every single performance to shine in a way that highlights the musical talent of each member, while Ronnie Bjornstrom’s re-amped rhythm guitars lend an organic air to Kingsland’s performance that never detracts from the cohesiveness of the whole. My biggest gripe with Revelation in Purity is that nearly half of the songs have been circulating in some form or fashion since late 2020, when the first raw versions of “Exclusion Continuum” began to appear. A mostly minor, personal disappointment that Imperishable didn’t keep more of their cards a tad closer to the vest.

Imperishable’s all-killer, no-filler approach makes for some impressive blackened death metal, and while Revelation in Purity isn’t doing anything particularly groundbreaking, what it does do is very good. While I was pleasantly surprised by last year’s Nile album and am wholly looking forward to Olkoth’s follow-up, Imperishable is now on Tyme’s list of things to watch for. I’m eager to hear what a batch of fresh new ideas and songs will sound like from this crew, because, as evidenced by Revelation in Purity, Imperishable has a bright future ahead of them.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Record Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 29th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #Emperor #EverlastingSpewRecords #Imperishable #MorbidAngel #Nile #Olkoth #RevelationInPurity #Review #Reviews