Cathexis - Untethered Abyss

Cathexis are a death metal group from Austin Texas. Their debut album "Untethered Abyss" is the culmination of six years of gruelling song writing and a carefully put together cast of international talent in order to recreate death metal with more groove and gore.

"Untethered Abyss" is an eight track death metal album with a production value that captures the humanity and an untouched energy that each of the amazing musicians display in each performance. Cathexis' focus on the more holistic song writing seeks to create a naturally flowing and iconic tracks which each and every riff.

You can tell there is a big focus on riffs as soon as we start the first song, 'Horizonless Realm Of Mechanical Retribution' by listening to this track alone you can feel the amount of passion each and every musician had behind this album. This track features a large amount of unique and memorable riffs that will be stuck in your head for ages. Starting with an atmospheric tone in order to set the mood of fear and dread which sets the tension or this whole album.

The second track of the album really demonstrates the vocalist's ability to growl with the classic toilet bowl guttural sound. With a simple riff that'll be stuck in you head for days then further into the song the riffs get more and more complex showing off a much more technical side of death metal. Cathexis have truly taken the genre and twisted it into their own special style of death metal with more brutality and complex patterns whilst still paying homage to the old school era of death metal.

This is one of those albums where every song is a hit and there are no negative sections. If you are a fan of death metal and want to discover a new band which have a different sound whilst still sticking to the original death metal era, then you should definitely give Cathexis a listen.

I would personally recommend Cathexis to fans of Gorguts and Necrophagist as they too have that much more gory and bloodthirsty sound behind their music with the deep growling vocals and riff centric guitar.

All in all you must pick up this album there are no negatives only positives and with 6 years of work put in behind it and an incredible level of passion for the death metal scene I hope to hear and see a lot more from Cathexis in the future.

5 / 5 STARS


1. Horizonless Realm Of Mechanical Retribution
2. Given To The Colony
3. Harrowing Manifestation
4. Red Hook
5. Library Of Babel
6. Mortuus In Perpetuum
7. Isolated Malevolence
8. Reanimated Kin