Review by Daniel for Civerous - Maze Envy (2024)
When Ben nominated the brand new sophomore album from Los Angeles death metallers Civerous as our May feature release a couple of weeks ago I found myself full of hopes & dreams of a potentially very positive experience. I’ve given Civerous’ 2021 debut album “Decrepit Flesh Relic” a few listens in recent years & found it to be a very enjoyable experience while the early reports on their newie “Maze Envy” had tended to indicate that it was another step up from the debut so all was boding very well for the potential success of this week's undertaking. None of the reviews I'd read would end up giving me a hint at the magnitude of the impact that “Maze Envy” would make on me though as it’s an astoundingly good extreme metal record & potentially one that will stay with me for many decades.
“Maze Envy” is a seven-track, 42-minute affair that comes in a striking purple cover. It took me a while to come around to the artwork at first but now I find myself loving it. The indecipherable band logo isn’t real flash but thankfully the contents of the album are quite remarkable. You’ll rarely find a better produced death metal record in my opinion with every instrument being full, clear, powerful & in your face while the energy levels are kept high & the crescendos receive earth-shattering power. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the production job is one of the major selling points for the album & I’d be perfectly happy if every metal release I ever heard in my life sounded like this one to be honest.
Civerous’ sound is generally touted as sitting somewhere between the doom/death & death metal genres but I have to admit that I’m not buying the doom/death tag here. Sure, “Maze Envy” has its doomy moments but there’s not enough of that material to justify a dual tag with the general atmosphere sitting clearly in the death metal camp. There are a number of other influences at play here though too with black metal, post-metal & even deathcore & djent receiving the occasional airing. It all works wonderfully well though with the vast majority of the material seemingly reaching the fullest realization of its potential. Front man Lord Foul is an absolute animal & his ultra-gutteral vocals are right up there with the best in the death metal game. They’re offset by the regular use of blackened screams that are almost as effective. I’m also a huge fan of the powerful yet innovative drumming of Aidan Neuner, as well as the subtle keyboards that are incorporated at just the right moments to ensure maximum atmosphere.
Sadly “Maze Envy” begins with its only weak point in the artsy modern classical intro piece “The Azure Eye” which does very little for me but the remainder of the album is right on the money, particularly the second half of the tracklisting which maintains its position in the more elite levels of the death metal hierarchy throughout. The one-two punch of new classics “Levitation Tomb” & the title track is utterly devastating while the two songs that bookend the album (“Shrouded in Crystals” & “Geryon (The Plummet”) aren’t far behind. This is crushingly heavy peak-time death metal of the highest order, so much so that I can easily see “Maze Envy” being my album of the year in another 7-8 months. The contrast of the Spectral Voice/diSEMBOWELMENT style doom/death sections & the more up-front Grave Miasma/Phrenelith/Incantation style death metal is so fucking appealing to this old extreme metalhead that I can hardly contain my joy right now. "Maze Envy" is just what I look for in my metal in 2024.