lt can feel too often that bands don’t use their debuts to their maximum potential whether it simply be due to the clear lack of experience or not knowing precisely what vision they want to bring to the table or somewhere in between the two. It’s such that when we do see a well and proper attempt, it’s the exact sort of material that blows us away without so much as breaking a sweat in the process. With just three tracks and a relevant theme paired alongside an utterly vicious sound, Novichoke’s debut fires on all cylinders to deliver us a performance with a promising future and horrifying present.

Music will always derive influence from current events no matter what time we’re living in and no matter the subject be it war or politics or literally anything else, and I will find it endlessly interesting when a band from a country other than mine uses their music as a unique look-in at what’s happening in many different places around the world even if it is just one perspective out of many. The Russian mindset is something that I know next to nothing about as an American, and with my interest in the Russian underground scene getting more fervent as the year’s go on it’s Novichoke and the creation of “Wounds” that catches my eye instantly without hearing even a single note. It’s in every way that “Wounds” not only paints a bleak picture from one man’s perspective but brings it to life in a fantastically haunting fashion that’s as eviscerating as it is gripping with Novichoke not only managing to present the material competently, it accomplishes the feat of being downright intoxicating in the most primal form. A combination of scathing black metal with a pulverizing infusion of death metal that’s topped off with a calculated use of noise, it’s all brought together in a magnificent form that makes “Wounds” feel somehow even more unforgiving as it’s even after the barrage of metal comes to a grinding halt that the aural torment continues as the noise puts a truly nihilistic permeates the very whole of this EP to make it just as foreboding in its present as it is wildly promising for Novichoke’s future.

With such a bold concoction done with a staggering level of competency and quality to match, how can any of us look upon what’s been accomplished with “Wounds” and not get immensely pumped up to think about what Novichoke could deliver to us later down the line? Everything that’s brought forward in this debut is the exact sort of material that deserves all the attention it can get, and I can only hope that whenever Novichoke finds the time to craft a decimating full-length that I will find many others basking in that ferocity for it is surely to be a fucking magnificent time with its foundations all laid forth in “Wounds”.

LISTEN to “Wounds” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Novichoke on Facebook here.