Band:	Ovid's Withering
Album:	Terraphage
Style:	Blackened deathcore, Progressive deathcore, Symphonic deathcore
Release date:	March 20, 2020
A review by:	Troy Killjoy

01. Oracle
02. Godless
03. Spectres On The Ebon River
04. The Bandits Of Shamblekeep
05. At The Dreadlord's Behest
06. Ballad Of The Lycan
07. Bloodscape
08. Tholg
09. Desperation
10. Corpsemover I
11. Corpsemover II

Deathcore appears to be reaching its final form, but those who helped during the developmental stages aren't necessarily the same ones still pushing the envelope.

Ovid's Withering blew up in the scene with their 2013 full-length debut, Scryers of the Ibis -- a unique take on the style, infused with elements of djent, symphonic metal, and black metal. Monumental in its ambition and historically significant as a clear and divisive initiate of increasingly progressive deathcore, their understated influence has paved a forked path to their most recent release: Terraphage.

The form and feel of an album such as this is inherently dichotomous, being so painstakingly crafted and thematic, yet chaotic and scattered in delivery due to an almost intentional barrage of sound. It's an unhinged collection of wildly varied ideas that aren't nearly as cohesive as with their debut. The distracting, awkward spoken-growled word passages (featuring the kind of "poetic" lyrics you hear during a high school poetry presentation); the obtrusive, grandiose synth abuse; and the recycled standard riffing are all parts that make up a rather bloated, disengaging whole. But it's far from all bad. Terraphage's greatest downfall is simultaneously its most admirable quality: With such a vast array of noise assaulting your ear canals, something is bound to stand out, even if only for moments dispersed across an hour of this specifically branded identity carved out during the better part of a decade.

Despite its overt flaws, the overall structure receives a late-game buff on an otherwise convoluted mess of an album, elevating it to heights that could garner it "listenable" -- and even "enjoyable" for some. While it spends the bulk of its journey building up through clumsily executed concepts, Terraphage concludes with the one area wherein Ovid's Withering excel: simplicity. Ironic, given their contextually avant-garde leanings, but their style has always been one that takes a basic foundation and expands into territories that, at times, it seems the band isn't even aware or sure of, but that complexity was previously allowed to grow organically from that baseline. That isn't showcased on this album until its climactic two-parter: a groove-oriented, mid-paced chug-a-thon that works up to a melody-laden mid-section buoyed by its soaring symphonic backdrop, closing awkwardly again with some misplaced spoken word.

With a streamlined approach to these more challenging structures, confining them to simpler points of origin rather than immediately racing for the finish line, this album could have been so much more digestible without losing any of what makes it what it is. Perhaps on their next release, we'll truly hear the potential unleashed, sending tidal waves through the community with yet another destructive, revolutionary force in the scene that shakes its core to death.