Band:	Vile Rites
Album:	Senescence
Style:	Progressive death metal
Release date:	August 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Only Silence Follows
02. Senescent
03. Shiftless Wanderings
04. Ephemeral Reverie Of Eroded Dreams
05. Transcendent Putrefaction
06. Banished To Solitude (Adrift On The Infinite Waves)

For all the bands that get labeled as ‘progressive death metal’, there’s arguably not that many in the present day that are all that closely tethered to death metal as it was first known to be. Such groups are out there though, and joining the likes of Horrendous and Tomb Mold are a new and exciting voice in Vile Rites.

Senescence is the debut album from the Bay Area trio, although 2022’s The Ageless EP inspired some buzz in the metal underground. The music on that EP was unambiguously death metal in its extremity, with its fair share of riffs descended from classic OSDM, but at the same time there was an undeniable technicality (given that bassist Stephen Coon also performs in Vektor, this shouldn’t be a surprise), as well as a certain progressiveness to the writing. Senescence is a very logical next step for the band, one that retains that extremity and capacity for more primal aggression while also expanding upon the group’s progressive and psychedelic inclinations.

A glimpse of those explorative tendencies are exhibited in the brief, eerie opening of “Only Silence Follows”, before this album opener rips into full-pelt death metal venom, rapid riffs shuttling along accompanied by hoarse growls. The band’s tech-death inclinations come through in the complex basslines that are boosted in the mix at opportune moments, but Alex Miletich gets to unleash some instrumental wizardry of his own on the guitar. A real turn in this song occurs around the halfway mark, as Vile Rites throw weird, spacey electronic sound effects on top of the metallic cacophony; the band do dabble with otherworldly sounds occasionally on the rest of the record, such as with some ominous windy sounds near the end of “Senescent” and the general vibes of mid-album interlude “Ephemeral Reverie Of Eroded Dreams”, but they don’t lean too heavily into such theming.

What “Senescent” does lean into more heavily is a real tech-death energy, and the mixture of great riffs, memorable lead parts, and lively complexity on this song make it a real standout on the record; the brooding mid-tempo bludgeoning in its earlier minutes is suitably grim and malevolent, but the track goes to another level in the closing stages. Right afterwards, “Shiftless Wanderings” pushes the band’s prog side a bit more to the fore with an extended clean introduction and outro, although sandwiched in between is an onslaught of intense metallic fury.

That aforementioned interlude does act as a Rubicon moment of sorts, as the two tracks that follow are about as long as the three that precede it, and that added length is used for more adventurous and overly proggy songwriting. “Transcendent Putrefaction” lets loose early on, but a large portion of its middle is dedicated to a prolonged passage characterized by ominous ambience, understated clean guitar work, and gradually complexifying technicality before an eventual explosion. Eleven-minute closer “Banished To Solitude (Adrift On The Infinite Waves)” has a similar sandwich structure, but the quiet middle is but a brief moment of contemplation. Instead, this song is more explorative within the metallic sections, balancing hints of melody with the primal force. This track also has the most memorable riffs on the record, including one that is repeated extensively during the song’s contemplative extended outro.

A lot of things are in place for Vile Rites to become a rising force in extreme metal; they’re all highly technically adept, they can write some great riffs and other hooks, and they’ve managed to get a great production on this album that plays to their strengths. If one were to be critical, it could be argued that the songs as complete packages don’t all have the strongest of flows, with the exception of “Banished To Solitude (Adrift On The Infinite Waves)” and perhaps “Senescent”. Additionally, it would be interesting to see them more consistently lean into their proggier tendencies across the album, but at the same time, the way it’s implemented on “Transcendent Putrefaction” with that overlong mid-song break isn’t as accomplished as the album closer, so there’s still also room to refine how exactly to go about being proggy.

Nitpicks aside, however, this is a very solid debut primed to appeal to people hungry for some progressive death metal and who are struggling to tolerate the remaining weeks until the next Blood Incantation album is let loose.