At any given moment, there are throngs of fresh names out there in the underground waiting to be discovered by anyone and everyone who chooses to get their hands dirty, start digging through the cacophonous depths, and find something that not many have experienced. At some point, you’ll reach an entity that may not be precisely what you were looking for, but damn if it isn’t a fascinating find. For all that death metal has to offer, many names come around each year to show us what they can bring to the table. Tonight, I found myself before the debut EP from Vanishing Grasp, who after pulling from much of its past experience in numerous other underground acts, offers a performance that may be exactly what many such excavators of the underground are searching for even if they don’t know it.

The first steps for any new band can be quite treacherous should the right kind of caution not be taken in order to give the volatility of death metal the space and respect that it has long deserved. Otherwise, musicians can all too easily become swept up in the power and euphoric undeath, failing to properly harness what the sound can be. Given the previous experience and underground pedigree behind Vanishing Grasp, it should not come as a shock that the nuclear bomb that is “Pang of Phantom Self” is just as impactful. A sublime effort that sees death metal contrasted between moments of restrained terror while effortlessly capable of unbridled evisceration, it delivers filthy riffs and knows precisely when to take its time that Vanishing Grasp ensures its punches always pack a magnificent wallop in such a way that leaves you stunned, bleeding, and begging for more. This patient effort with surgical precision that can only be likened to that of a scalpel’s edge. “Pang of Phantom Self” is nothing if not an utterly terrifying experience that sees the rending of flesh, the scouring of the spirit, and the consumption of the soul as Vanishing Grasp makes damn sure that its first effort sets the tone for all that has yet to come.

When looking for fresh talent in the inscrutable madness that death metal offers the underground, it’s only a matter of time before you find something you never could have anticipated. For all that it offers, Vanishing Grasp is nothing if not an unanticipated entry into the writhing realms of death metal the likes of which you can only find along the very floor of the underground where naught but howling and incorporeal insanity are to be found for those who do not know the paths.

“Pang of Phantom Self” releases on May 8th via Rotted Life!

LISTEN to an advanced track from “Pang of Phantom Self” on Bandcamp here.

FOLLOW Vanishing Grasp on Instagram here.