Reviews list for Turris Eburnea - Turris Eburnea (2021)

There is a lot to like coming out of this new wave of technical death metal during the 2020s. It's nice to hear that artists have finally decided to start writing full songs rather than just limited fragments half heartedly spliced together for dramatic whiplash effect. I like how bands have begun incorporating more avant-garde songwriting structures to their music as an additional layer of technical demand. And I really appreciate how much more important bass lines have become, and how independence from the chugging guitar riffs opens up the music to many more possibilities as to where it can go in the future.

And so, this new tech-death duo, Turris Eburnea, are doing what they can do to continue the legacy that has been left behind by bands like Gorguts and Dead Congregation. And I rather enjoy this sludgier, almost post-metal hybrid of extreme technical death metal that sees the band using more guitar leads and well established bass lines, complimenting the chugging rhythm guitars and moving percussion parts. Some of this album resonates in the same way as Ulcerate did last year with Stare Into Death and Be Still. So much so that I could have sworn some of the atmospheric parts of the instrumental "Syncretism Incarnate" were taken directly out of that playbook. The vocals feel a lot less developed and further alienated to the back of the mix on these songs though.

Compositions are quite solid. The opener "Unified Fields" has a unique blend of interconnectivity between its moving parts and doesn't feel like it's being overstuffed with ideas. This carries further into "Cotard Delusion" and the instrumental "Syncretism Incarnate". The closer, "Malachite Mountains" is the the closest to a traditional tech-death song this EP gets and it sounds fine with many of the elements discussed earlier.  I just found it to be a little less memorable.

But overall, if I were to call this technical death metal, I feel like I would be being disingenuous. Some might see that comparison and make unfair comparisons. This is avant-garde tech death with an apparent attention to melody that should be commended. I don't know how much more of this I would have been able to tolerate, so the fact that it is a relatively short EP, it gets some bonus points for that as well.