Review by Alex on February 4, 2020.

Only recently I had the chance to review Void Rot’s debut demo, a record I thought was unjustly overlooked due to the immobilizing grip Spectral Voice had within the underground. You mentioned the words death/doom in these walks and Spectral Voice was if not the first to fall from someone’s tongue they were among the bunch. Atavisma is pure genius if you think about what they did with their debut album "The Chthonic Rituals" in 2018. Yet again an album I thought was not given the credit it deserved due to so much happening at the time, so most eyes and ears were already preoccupied with the more headline events. However, the stars would align and the two nefarious entities would meet, together exercising the strengths of their woven craft thus forming this 6 headed beast of a split due out on everlasting spew February 7th, 2020.

If you're not yet familiar with the venomous ways of Atavisma then you need to be if you intend on surviving the gravitational density of their instrumental and vocal structure. Opening with 'Speared Lungs', Atavisma bellows from the deepest depths in foul fashion, gargling the acidious bile and chunks of amputated autonomies. Spread across 3:45 of unconquerable, unquarantined void spillage, the beast that is Atavisma reactivates the spells of "The Chthonic Rituals" this time with exponential effect as their benevolence for the dark grows to unimaginable magnitudes. Hearing those the growling bowels unearth frequencies un-suppressible that'd only echo through supporting emanations of 'Mould Upheaval' and 'Dread' while the plundering ritual drumming and screeching strings shape the extraterrestrial matter, a blackened absence of awareness contaminates the consciousness in de-fertilization.

Blossoming from the smothered soil, a seed spreading pestilence and plague, Void Rot makes use of the corrupt compost with 'Ritual Invocation' continuing their spiritual tyranny activated on 2018's Consumed by Oblivion 'Ancient Seed' and concluded with 'Celestial Plague'. Like defeating some unholy deity only to discover there-in this creature lies another more powerful, vilification of its former self. Void Rot strings together the menacing howls and thunderous bursts to sacrifice them before swarming riffs fulfilling the desire of its output. Still striding with an ambient and rhythmic elegance distinctively marking the band, ‘Necrotic Deity’ breathes feverishly as Void Rot’s best song to date with punctuation. Safe to say, the quartet has fiddled and fondled with their practice to the point of establishing a definite sound, groove and tempo as a principle of theirs. With the finalized face of the beast revealed ‘Accursed Earth’ puts into motion the now developed weapon and with startling results.

With such a colossal sound Atavisma and Void Rot make you feel like the tiniest speck of dust lost and forgotten to a universe of nothingness on this split. Both bands put their better hand at work have in-turn formulated one of the heaviest split death/doom records of the new year thus far.

Rating: 8.4 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 11, 2021.

Welcome to the clearly structured poetry of good old Johnny Hedlund. On the one hand, his world is full of "unleashed hammer battalions", "immortal armies" and "simple but honest people", on the other hand we have this goddamned Christianity that kills the origin culture of the once innocent Vikings in the most perfidious manner. Nice to know that things can be so easy. Do not get me wrong, I am not intending to reject this tradition-conscious approach completely. Yet in times of Islamist terror attacks, I am quite unsure whether these lyrics are still up-to-date. Maybe it is time to reject old enemy images. Anyway, Hedlund and his comrades are not known for their flexibility. And, to be honest, that's not a bad thing. With regard to Dawn Of The Nine, Unleashed present themselves one more time as a reliable partner for their supporters. Experiments, surprises or innovation? You must be kidding. I am speaking about Unleashed, the unpretentious, non-pompous Swedish genre flagship - and I believe that the majority of their loyal fans does not want to be confronted with anything else but generic death metal.

The full-length shows the typical picture of the Scandinavian marathon runners. Some mid-paced pieces attack intransigently, fast outbursts like 'They Came To Die' add a spicy flavour. The upright four-piece has been in the business long enough in order to create appropriate genre tracks and the experience of the musicians shimmers through every composition. 'Dawn Of The Nine' is another work that gives the lie to all those who say that progressive song patterns are indispensable for the creation of an interesting record. Unleashed illustrate once again that more or less conservative schemes can work sufficiently well. Moreover, the sound of the album finds the right balance between density, massiveness and transparency. One can blame Nuclear Blast for many of their actions, their flamboyant advertising, the collaboration with grotesque jumping jacks such as Sabaton or Sonata Arctica and their missing company profile, to name but a few examples. Yet it cannot be said that the enterprising Germans are well known for low budget productions.

Dawn Of The Nine sounds neither totally fresh nor does it indicate that Unleashed should call it a day. The album belongs to these numerous works that impress with a strong beginning and fail to keep the level until the end. Both the death and doom combining title track and the closer enrich the output rather in terms of quantity than in terms of quality. Nevertheless, the vast majority of death metal fans will find a couple of tracks that will make their day. In my humble opinion, the partly apocalyptic 'Where Is Your God Now?' with its hovering guitar lines between verse and chorus or the uncompromising 'Let The Hammer Fly' stand out, but the two openers also should not be left unmentioned in this context. So what does this all mean at the end? Well, the four musicians play their parts very professionally. The solos and the further instrumental parts shine with coherence, the melodies do not lack of robustness and Hedlund's vocals appear as strong as ever. Dawn Of The Nine is a resilient, very solid album and its best songs can more or less compete with classics such as 'Onward Into Countless Battles' or 'To Asgaard We Fly'. ('Before The Creation Of Time' remains naturally unaffected.) But is it a necessary album? Decide for yourselves.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10