Heresiarch - Edifice CD

With 2024 arrives a megaton payload of devastation, HERESIARCH's second album, elegantly titled 'Edifice'. If there were any doubts that the band were but yet another toneless 'n' tired "war metal" troupe, the New Zealanders trounce any and all trepidation with exceptionally seismic songwriting. Here on Edifice, the parameters of HERESIARCH's sound - death metal muscle, black metal atmosphere, grindcore aggression - are all in devastating harmony, creating a hydra-headed beast that betrays a wealth of true-yet-twisted ideas. More than just safely evading easy categorisation (which is often mere doublespeak for "pleasing all constituents"), the quartet lay bare a landscape of texture titanic in its heft and foreboding in its effect, seamlessly winding through minefields both sonic and psychic and eventually culminating in a grandiose two-part finale in the equally compellingly titled "Hubris and Decline" and "Militate Pyrric Collapse." For sure, HERESIARCH sound as martial as ever, but the lava now flows in palatably unique ways, all without compromising their core aesthetic. Indeed, one could say they've finally found order through chaos.