I’ve always loved the fact that whenever I sit down to listen to black metal when it’s only described as such, I could be in store for almost quite literally anything simply because of how eclectic the style is as a whole between all the innovation and new acts that are constantly changing the soundscape. Seeing anything from the style tagged as technical by the band always gets me to raise an eyebrow since I always associate technical metal with death metal more than anything else, and, if anything, that draws me in even more to see what the band in question was able to do with the concept. In the case of Renunciation’s debut EP, it’s truly a work I was not expecting and was not easily able to stop listening to.
Right out of the gate, you can tell that Renunciation didn’t pull a single punch when crafting this EP, and it’s a ride you’re definitely going to want to strap yourself in for as you don’t want to miss any of the tantalizing details that are constantly flying past your face at a break-neck speed that makes it all somewhat hard to take in but no less than incredibly satisfying. Everything about “The Terminal Archetype” comes at you extremely fast with it being very apparent that Renunciation isn’t another run-of-the-mill black metal album that’s destined to be lost to the depths of the scene because of its unoriginality, but, rather, it will rise because of how original it is in even its smallest moments. All five tracks, including the seemingly skippable intro, are constantly evolving and topping themselves in such a way that even just one track makes the entirety of “The Terminal Archetype” something that any reasonable listener would be compelled to investigate further just from the sheer quality that’s being performed in every second of any song, and then it’ll be between the overall greatness, shockingly eclectic sound, and undeniable energy that will surely satisfy most who finds themselves sucked into what Renunciation has accomplished. It’s something that grabs you almost instantaneously with so much of the sound being against the grain for what we’ve come to expect from black metal, and that’s just another brick into the growing pile of reasons why Renunciation has done something special with “The Terminal Archetype”, and it absolutely demands to be heard.
There aren’t very many unique debut EPs when it comes to this style because a lot of them tend to go for roughly the same kind of sound in what feels like practically every instance, but there’s no way to argue that what Renunciation does here is do their best to not become part of the overwhelming scene of normalcy. Whether their goal was to be set apart from the majority of the style just to be different or this sound just occured organically between friends and musicians it matters not to me, and that’s only because of how stupendous of a surprise “The Terminal Archetype” still is to me days after listening to it and I hope many others will feel the same.
LISTEN to “The Terminal Archetype” on Bandcamp here.
LIKE Renunciation on Facebook here.
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