Filth. Complete and utter filth. That’s the essence that settles in early when getting close with Coffinworm’s (though with that name, who could be surprised?) newest work, VI.I.VIII. A volatile mixture of sludge and grind, Coffinworm paints a claustrophobic picture where no joy exists and no life can grow. Across the svelte 39 minutes of the album’s runtime and its six hymns of perpetual putrescence only one thing remains clear: you will die and you likely won’t enjoy it.
Initial single “Black Tears” is as good a place as any to start, its charms inherent from the start: glacially paced dirges (glaciers of human failure and waste, that is) that eventually give way to a mid-paced grind made ornate with industrial (ish) overtones and a knack for the malevolent which never relents. “Of Eating Disorders and Restraining Orders” is a march into abyssal realms, not far removed from the slower moments of Nails and beholden to the same kind of suffocating power. Eventually, however, the song slows to a noise-laden crawl and with a sample playing overtop, a maelstrom of shit sees the song eclipse.
Whether taken as pieces or as a whole, IV.I.VIII is an experience unlike most others. Continual props to Profound Lore for finding and maintaining the absurd level of quality that they (he?) do, this release kills. Tales of languishing and the fury that accompanies being erased from existence, this is the score to being undone. The gradual collapse that encompasses the length of “A Death Sentence Called Life” encapsulates everything: the blast, the grind, the collapse, the hazy unwinding that gives way to nothingness. Stunning at times.