Magus

Offshoot of a prolific period of Texas metal, Magus makes doom metal out of blasting technical death.

Ruminations of Debauchery
Elegy
1996

Production: Roomy sound containing dense guitar/voice.
Review: Echoing halls of cavernous passage earmark this grinding ambient death metal experiment as it winds through songs melding sinuous turnaround motion to the rhythmic atmospheres created through minimalist riffs in careful placement against a previously invented thread of melody varying through circular song structure embellished with transitional exploration in the context of a tapestry of flute, keyboard and sung vocals establishing an era of the ancients as the inspiration within this music. Structured around natural motion like the great collaboration of life and death called earth collectively breathing, the organic unfurling of melody within each of these tracks occurs slowly and with subtlety as the memes insinuate themselves into consciousness and persistent rhythms and abrupt changes placed logically within the song inculcate listener consciousness with slow prevalence.

Tracklist:

1. Debauchery (7:50)
2. Icons Of Gods (2:19)
3. Rumination (...of nature) (4:50)
4. The Magus (3:01)
5. Reflections Of The Dark (2:52)
6. Hexacles (outro) (1:32)
Length: 22:26

Copyright © 1996 Elegy

Flexibly transferring energy between styles, this release is often grinding and blastingly fast on par with Cryptopsy or Suffocation, and in the next moment an ambient interlude or the slow, grinding protean constructions of arching structures layering implication of emphasis toward a tone central to the deconstruction of each piece. While violent and dominant in its phrasing, this music also creates mood in its compressed vision of the world as rendered in powerchords and guttural, sublinguistic vocals alongside thrashing cymbal metronomic motion and animalistic, whipping snare. While brief the insight this EP gives us into this unique band and the personalities behind reveals an offshoot of death metal developing from its roots in raw rhythm and deconstruction to its aspirations in the epic.