Apparition (USA) - Feel (2021)^{Release ID: 31782}

This is most definitely centred right on my death metal g-spot! The instant it's gloriously downtuned, cavernous riffage infested my earbuds, I was hooked. OK, it's Autopsy worship does absolutely nothing original, but is so well executed and is just so much to my taste that I don't intend to criticise it for not diverting from the template set down by Chris Reifert and company more than three decades ago now. Although the album as a whole is somewhat generic, in that they don't try to do anything unexpected, the band have a genuine grasp of what this corner of the death metal world requires.

The riffs are massive with some real killers amongst them, although they don't push the needle much beyond medium-paced with very little blasting even on the pacier sections, the beginning of Perpetually Altered probably marking the album's peak velocity. The subsonic vocals even rival Reifert's growls for sounding like the ravings of some infernal, abyssal demon and are a big part of the draw of Feel for me. The downtuned riffage and generally cavernous atmosphere make it feel more doomy than it actually is, as they don't stray into purely death doom territory as much as you think, slowing the pace to a crawl only for a short time during most tracks. Each of the tracks are artfully constructed and the variety in pacing throughout is worked very well. An extra layer of atmosphere is supplied on the most doom-laden track, Nonlocality, with the inclusion of thin but atmospheric keyboards that reminded me of the keys used by Thergothon on their classic Stream From the Heavens with the thinness of the keys being in marked contrast to the meaty heft of the guitar sound.  The production is very effective with a cloying thickness to the atmosphere, whilst still possessing sufficient clarity to do each of the instruments justice and never descending into an indiscernable morass.

This is most definitely the kind of release I can revisit time after time as I live for this kind of cavernous sound, absorbing it like plants absorb sunlight.

I’ve certainly been aware of Los Angeles death metallers Apparition since this release saw the light of day a couple of years ago & have been meaning to give it the attention required to develop a firm opinion on it ever since so it’s great to finally have the opportunity gifted to me via this month’s feature release nomination. You see, Apparition certainly sound like my cup of tea on paper. Dank & swampy sound? Tick! Underground integrity? Check! Decent production & performances? Uh-huh. Capable song-writing? Yep! But sometimes all of those things strangely don’t amount to a positive experience for one reason or another. Everything just needs to gel & thankfully that’s what happens with “Feel” because I’ve really enjoyed the ride.

Let’s get one thing straight. Apparition don’t try to reinvent the wheel in any way, shape or form. You won’t find anything that you haven’t heard before on “Feel” & the more elite death metal acts have arguably done it better too. But if you love the darker, doomier end of the death metal spectrum then you’re probably unlikely to care much about the lack of originality anyway because Apparition know what good death metal should sound like & have managed to reproduce it here.

The descriptions of the album as sitting between your classic death metal sound & the doom/death subgenre are accurate although there’s little doubt that Apparition sit far closer to the death metal side of the equation with Incantation being a pretty reasonable point of comparison. There’s a measured feel to the riffage though that sees the band never taking off into relentless blast-beat territory. Instead we find them staying relatively within themselves & focusing on tight, chunky, memorable riffs. Do they succeed? Well yeah… for the most part. There are certainly a few brief missteps along the way but the majority of this stuff is highly enjoyable. I do have to admit though that I prefer it when Apparition get their doom on, particularly when they add a touch of atmosphere like they do with the inclusion of some subtle keyboards at the end of the wonderful album highlight “Nonlocality”.

Apparition’s sound is as much the drawcard as the actual songs though to be honest as they’ve been very successful at replicating that grimy graveyard atmosphere that all members of The Horde should be able to relate to. The vocals of drummer Andrew Morgan are deep & monstrous while the guitars of Jnut (who is also in Californian crossover thrash outfit Dead Heat) & Deadbody axeman Miles McIntosh are very tight & opt to slowly engulf the listener rather than brutally assault you. These are very positive attributes for a death metal-based release so, despite a couple of the six tracks not being all that amazing, I can’t say that I’m ever left feeling that there’s a noticeable blemish on the consistency of the tracklisting so I don’t think there’ll be too many disappointed fans of doomy death metal walking away from “Feel” with a negative impression. Apparition know what they’re doing & they do it well. There’s no progressive wankery or expansive experimentation going on here. It’s a death metal for death metal’s sake affair & I for one have no problem with that at all.

There is a strong argument (in my opinion at least) that Apparition need not bother releasing another record. I mean they surely cannot make Feel ever again I am sure, so as much as I would lap up anything else they release in the future, if this is the sum of their output as a group then they would be ending on a very high note. Taking all the standard references from ugly death metal such as Autopsy and Incantation and wearing them on their chests like war trophies, Apparition’s debut album is an unapologetic celebration of death metal that is bereft of melody and uninterested in technical prowess or boundary expansion.

That is not to say that these cannot play. They may sound like Autopsy in places, but they are by no means as clumsy in their delivery. Apparition sounds like a collaboration of capable musicians recording an almost jam session like sequence of tracks. This is an album that deploys spectral elements well enough to provide real depth and dimension to proceedings. Strings get picked here as well as being engaged in some consistently rhythmical riffing also. As one guitarist goes into a slow chug, the other lags slightly behind and drops some dankly melodic notes to emphasize that this is an album that writhes in murk.

It is the tracks that invite these spectral elements that stand out from the crowd with Entanglement being a particularly strong moment towards the end of the record. Vocalist Andrew Morgan is suitably as monstrous on the skins as he is with his vocal cords as his drum work drives the strong sense of rhythm on Feel. As I said in the opening paragraph of this review, I could play Feel forever without a care for anything else that Apparition might put out in the future. Taking the modern format of Tomb Mold and giving it a deeply rooted foundation in the old-school, Feel is a fantastic example of why death metal does not always need frills to be interesting.