Band:	Telos
Album:	Delude
Style:	Mathcore, Blackened hardcore
Release date:	March 18, 2023
A review by:	musclassia

01. Within Reach
02. Bastion
03. Never Me
04. I Accept/I Receive
05. I've Been Gone For So Long
06. Lapse
07. As Atlas Stumbled
08. Throne

LLNN, Hexis, Eyes... Denmark is turning out to be quite the hotbed for venomous, pissed-off sonic violence. Another name from the same scene that you may not have yet encountered is Telos, but it’s a name worth acquainting oneself with for anyone who has enjoyed the names mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.

There’s clear reason why enjoyment of one of these bands might result in enjoyment of another; in the case of Telos, they share a vocalist with Eyes in Victor Kaas, while LLNN’s Christian Bonnesen makes a guest appearance on new album Delude alongside Konvent’s Rikke Emilie List. It’s more than personnel, though; it’s the whole ethos. Frenzied, brutal hardcore is the name of the game here, not all that far off the recently released Congratulations from Eyes, and both albums share a capacity to spill over into Dillinger-esque mathcore. Add to that flirtations with black and sludge metal similar to those from Hexis, and you’ve got a malevolent mix of ugly styles resulting in a truly misanthropic end result.

Delude is a vicious record, there’s no doubt of that. “Within Reach” is an immediate assault of throatripping screams, jagged riffs and bludgeoning percussion, fluctuating between mathcore choppiness, more straight metallic hardcore savagery, and slower pummelling. “Bastion” immediately follows it up with more hardcore violence, alternating between full-pelt pounding and slowed-down bruising. Later on, “I’ve Been Gone For So Long” is dizzying in some of its riffing, while “Lapse” is a further round of fury.

There’s more to Delude than pure aggression, however; Telos know how to write some killer riffs. “I’ve Been Gone For So Long” has some infectious grooves amidst its more off-kilter passages, “Lapse” threatens to crush all challengers with its slower riffs and chugs, and “As Atlas Stumbled” contrasts furious blasting with irresistible rolling grooves. There’s even more to Telos than just fast pandemonium and slow neckbreaking; in the second half of track three, “Never Me”, the band initially pull away, before shifting into a soaring tremolo climax more at home in post-hardcore than straight hardcore. It’s a triumphant passage that serves as an impressive change of pace from the material that precedes it on the record.

Delude’s two real standout tracks, however, are its longest, the two that go over 5 minutes on an album where every other song is 4 minutes or fewer. “I Accept / I Receive” is a trudging, brooding exercise in bleak, sludgy atmosphere, a contorting cacophony that bubbles under the surface throughout. It’s an oasis of subtle grimness amidst a desert of abrasion, and is only really comparable in being such to the closing track, “Throne”. The sustained repeating groove in sections of it sounds like the kind of thing Gojira might come up with if attempting to move into this sphere of music, but the most striking element, amidst all the venom and vulgarity, is the introduction of clean guitar melody, both in the form of post-rock tremolo and more structured motifs, that brings an unexpected beauty to round off an otherwise nasty record.