Hranice Abyss - Aphagy

Groove and thunder is what listeners will get with the EP from Hranice Abyss. Hailing from Brazil this death thrash hybrid slaughters ears with their debut mini album “Aphagy.” With the tone of the guitars, drums, and vocals, one will definitely draw comparisons to groups like Belphegor. The vocals switch between the deep growls or the higher pitched shrieks and the chugging patterns definitely sound similar to something that might heard off of “Conjuring The Dead” when considering a track like ‘Flawless Oblivion.’ The drums are definitely the highlight of the album with their thick, clear patterns, and the thrashy guitar solos add a little more variety to the music, but overall the album sounds more death metal oriented than anything else. The opening ‘Voiceless’ is like a brief prequel to rev the album up but tracks like ‘Violation Of The Human Condition’ with its slow chuggy pace, traded vocals, and thick sound epitomize what Hranice Abyss can do. It is more old school sounding but the groove keeps listeners hooked and delivers some promising head banging music.

A lot of the music here tends to stay at a mid to slow pace so those expecting some extreme speed crushers in the vein of the likes of Deicide or Cannibal Corpse will probably be pretty disappointed; this is more Six Feet Under death metal speed. ‘Byron’s Embrace’ is an excellent example of this as it just lumbers along- not quite a full on rager tune but still heavy enough to band the head to. ‘Pathfinder’ is the only real thrashy track here with some of the riffs and finally speeds things up, but it almost feels out of place with how much faster it is. Hranice Abyss do mix things up a bit here by adding in some proggy bass solos so that brings some more depth to the music overall. Ultimately, those like a bit of groove mixed with their death metal in the vein of the likes of Belphegor or even Vader will find the “Aphagy” EP a good listen, and nice sample of what is to come from the group hopefully in the near future.

3 / 5 STARS


1. Voiceless
2. Flawless Oblivion
3. Thoughtseize
4. Violation Of The Human Condition
5. Byron’s Embrace
6. Pathfinder


Self released
Reviewer: Colin McNamara
Oct 6, 2021

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