Band:	Convulsing
Album:	Perdurance
Style:	Blackened death metal
Release date:	March 2024

01. Pentarch
02. Flayed
03. Inner Oceans
04. -
05. Gossamer Pall
06. Shattered Temples
07. Endurance
08. A Smart Kid [Porcupine Tree cover] [bonus]

Somehow dissonant death metal always seems to lean closer to the tech death side rather than the prog death side of the more intricate versions of death metal. That's not the case with Convulsing's Perdurance.

The line between what is "technical" and what is "progressive", and to some extent also what is "avant-garde", is quite blurred. All of them use intricacy and deviations from more standard songwriting techniques to create songs that are usually more in the longer runtimes. As a non-musician, putting the difference into words is a bit harder than just "you'll know it when you hear it", but I guess one way to look at the difference between the two is that technical death metal puts more emphasis on short-term intricacy, mind-boggling riffs and transitions where it feels like the song throws something new at your face every other moment; and progressive death metal puts more emphasis on long-term intricacy, finding ways to creatively arrange the pieces of the puzzle.

Obviously it's more complicated than that, and I'm sure someone who actually composes stuff like this could pinpoint things more accurately, but I think Convulsing is a pretty good case study for this. Already a pretty established name due to the previous two releases, 2016's Errata and 2018's Grievous, both albums that achieved quite a lot of acclaim in underground circles for their disso-blackened death sound, maybe even more so for the project's status as a one-man band. The last we heard of mainman Brendan Sloan, he had joined Altars, a band of similar ethos, with their latest injecting a bit more Convulsing into their sound. For all three of these I don't think I could make an effective case for them leaning closer to the prog side, intricate as they all are, the lines on all of them are too blurry.

Perdurance already sets itself apart first by having been a surprise album, with barely if any promotion before its release, and due to its very minimal yet expressive cover art that's quite unusual for the genre. I wouldn't exactly call it a blend of two sounds, but it's clear that a huge chunk of it is a continuation of the dissonant and blackened death metal that Convulsing did prior, something that reminds more of Abyssal and Gorguts than anything else, but the songwriting itself feels less overwhelming this time around, even with all its uncommon time signatures and explosions of dissonance. It never feels like the emphasis is on pulling the rug from the listener's feet, but rather lulling them.

Sloan's rasps reminding me of Åkerfeldt at times plus the way some of the riffs flow do sometimes remind me of a more dissonant take on Opeth's heaviest moments, albeit even more maddening and with an atmosphere even more malevolent. Atmosphere seems to be a pretty defining aspect of Perdurance, alternating between riffing that's overtly complex and structures that build immersion, alongside several moments that go into mellower territories that echo the usual mood-setting interludes but go a bit further in how well they're integrated structurally and texturally, and how well they flow with the rest of the album without feeling like they're just breathers of breaking momentum, as well as plenty of moments where the actual metal is more melodic and mellow and even doomy at times. And perhaps most intriguing is how Convulsing rekindled the tradition set by their debut of ending their albums with a Porcupine Tree cover (though one that's more bonus track this time around).

I guess most of still kinda boils down to "you'll know it when you hear it", but I'm glad I heard Convulsing push their disso-blackened death sound further into progressive territories.