Sonic purveyors of aural extremity, Decoherence, have created order through chaos since their successful debut Ekpyrosis scorched our ears back in 2019. The UK/US Void Sculptors play penetrating black metal, unleashing gravity-defying soundscapes of twisted metal in shapes of disgust and rage through their abhorrent and abstract vision. Decoherence forge an utterly malignant sound that proudly belongs under Sentient Ruin’s banner.
Officially album number three, or four if you count the compilation of System I, Order begins with the insidious crawl of ominous, mechanised dread, opening the baleful ‘Closed Timelike Curves’. The violence seethes to a boiling point, erupting in a volatile, barbaric outpouring of dissonant fury. Quaking entity ‘An Unconfined System’ hammers with bowel-rupturing blastbeats and twitching lunacy and ‘With No Pre-Existing Direction’ drags you into a harrowing vortex of jarring blackness where bone-crunching riffs and atonal strings call though the deafening noise.
‘The Future Behind Them’ is cold, bleak and doom-laden. Slow, sludgy guitars and thudding drum beats pull their way through a suffocating, dystopian landscape, with only moments of sporadic harshness in the form of severe, time-bending riffs and bruising guitars shifting space alongside ground-pounding blastbeats. ‘Quintessence Field’ lashes out with its venom right off the bat, flailing and flaying uncontrollably with its rabid tremolos and disfigured effects. A desolate yet sinistrous, ambient midsection offers respite only to be consumed by a final wave of cataclysmic torrents. ‘Degenerate Ground States’ ends the album at a more restrained pace, sending whirring, staticky sirens vibrating over industrialised menace. Swaying, undulating discordance marches into upbeat, fist-thrashing drum hits and dissipates into a warped start to a finale that ravages you with one last round of blastbeats.
The three stars align to coherently unify the sound into one terrifying organism. Tahazu dominates on vocals, spewing out deformed, imposing screams. Stroda’s instrumental talent remains strong and creative, ever-pushing the boundaries of mayhem and breaking laws of physics, churning out molten, malign riffs and relentless blastbeat devastation. Prior’s electronics help the tracks shimmer with her mechanical wizardry adding a nuanced level that elevates the track a little more, such as a finely delicate atmosphere or something that helps extremity build to bursting fits of viciousness.
Order is another punishing and dense slab of blackened extremity that sucks you violently into a vacuum of unimaginable scientific horror, decaying futures and terrifying cosmic anomalies. Another wonderful release from a band at the top of their game.
