Somehow Twitch of the Death Nerve’s sophomore effort, which came out in 2020, managed to elude this scribe, but it was a pleasant surprise to find this EP in the ole inbox. Beset by False Prophets packs more weight than you might expect though, due to the addition of 9 live tracks (plus an intro) that pad the time significantly.
For the new material, Twitch still continues to use the same pulverizing sources that they have been doing since their inception. The four new tracks here provide nothing but brutal death metal meant to musically devastate anyone in the near vicinity. It’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but the band does know exactly how to concentrate on songs instead of it just being an indistinguishable eruption of chaos (not that those things can’t be enjoyed from time to time). But the command of potent grooves (and audible bass even) along with explosions of speed on a track like “At the Trial of the Exhumed Pope” should be recognized for the sheer enjoyability of the combination. In that regard, all four tracks are thoroughly solid. As far as the live portion of the disc, recorded just prior to lockdown initiating last year, the recording quality is solid. Given the desperation for some live music now almost a year later, it works as a fair substitute – capturing the band at their most brutal.
Beset by False Prophets works as a nice stopgap between releases for Twitch of the Death Nerve. The four songs are as brutal as they come, and the live set included is lengthy and serves as a nice introduction to the band to any who may stumble across it.