Finally, the German underworld lurkers of humongous subsonic death Nekus, return with "Death Apophenia", a death-scarred sonic interment into absolute subterranean torment, and their most lightless and catacombal statement to date. The colossal sophomore full-length entombment expands on the putrid and crushing heaviness of its critically acclaimed predecessor “Sepulchral Divination”, taking the band's formula of droning sepulchral death doom to its most inevitable and horrendous triumph yet.
The horrendous sonic suffocation has been teased by iconic extreme metal blog Decibel Magazine, who in premiering the track “Accursed Murmur“ have remarked how the song is “a pure death-doom nightmare“ that is “both power and atmosphere in equal measure” - you can check out the track and feature HERE.
With its forty-plus minute running time split up in just five pachydermic movements, "Death Apophenia" casts the listener down into an aphotic sunken abyss to be torn apart by immense tidal forces and crushed by catastrophic tectonic pressure. The band’s staple use of reverb to create immense, growling subterranean hallways reaches the pinnacle of its mastership, and so does their ability to construct humongously grotesque atmospheres that make the listener feel like they are being devoured by the earth and mummified alive. Tortured screams drenched in feedback and enormous and solemn sounding drum shells create a ritual-like telluric funeral march into the underworld, while slabs of inhumanly crushing and downtuned guitars bore a massive hole into the earth like molten lava melting the crust and sinking downward into the blackest chasm, evoking the sensation of an enormous, planet-sized horrendous burial taking place. Nothing can escape the sheer tonnage and crushing force of this immense sonic beast, and while Nekus are shown to be diligently delving further into the redefinition and delineation of their own personal idea of death metal as a monolithic and cinematic sentence to complete aural entombment, the comparisons to bands like Grave Upheaval, early Temple Nightside, Moss, Anatomia and The Funeral Orchestra, due to the surreal hideousness of the atmospheres and sheer heaviness of the music, will be many and not far from truth.
"Death Apophenia" is slated for a November 15 2024 release worldwide via Sentient Ruin on LP, CD, MC and digital, and all formats are now preorderable via all our channels.
Nekus were formed by current and past members of Putridarium, Into Coffin, Hadit, Omnivore, and Bestial Warfare, among others, starting out as a trio in Marburg, Germany around 2018. The band was started by Italian musician G.N. on vocals and guitar, E. on bass, and M.K. on drums, emerging with a humongous sepulchral, bottom-caving sound blending black and death metal with crippling, slow-moving and insanely downtuned doom with massive atmospheres and a huge and crushing low end reminiscent of bands like Moss, Grave Upheaval and Sunn O))). Their uniquely horrific, rumbling and mummified sound first found expression on the “Death Nova Upon the Barren Harvest” debut EP issued in 2020 on all formats by Blood Harvest Records, being soon followed by the “Malevolence Evocations” split CD with Impure Declaration, released the same year by Old Temple.
The band then delivered over fifty minutes of catacombal and suffocating death-doom on “Sepulchral Divinations”, their 2023 critically acclaimed debut 2LP album for Sentient Ruin, which was then quickly again followed up by a ten-minute cassette tape split with Canadian war metal label mates Ceremonial Bloodbath. These two releases underlined the band’s evolving mastery of guitar, vocal, and drum reverb use, extremised to create a uniquely spectral and subterranean hellscape, evoking visions of monstrous caverns and hallways bellowing beneath the earth’s crust, and soon becoming the prime ingredient and concept of the band’s staple sepulchral sound. “Death Apophenia”, Nekus’ sophomore full-length album, will just as swiftly follow in November 2024, introducing the band now in a four-piece configuration with the addition of L.D. (from Putridarium and Barbaric Oath) assuming second guitar duties; a move wich further evolves the complexity and textural enormity of the band’s reverb-drenched, bottom-heavy onslought. But it’s not only the lineup expansion which also expands the band’s musical horizon and their capacity to truly build and consecrate their vision. “Death Apophenia” also represents a big step up for Nekus in recording value. A move which has refined and improved the band’s concept further by introducing an enhanced clarity and articulation in production quality, exalting further the cinematic quality of the band’s widescreen, otherworldly sound and of its mortieferous, crushing droning frequencies.