Brutal Blackened Death Metal — she’s a cruel, unforgiving mistress. Get it wrong, and you sound like a bunch of half-drunk lunatics learning their instruments in real time while some poor bastard takes an explosive shit in the next room and accidentally becomes your vocalist. But get it right? Get it right, and you ascend to that rare, unholy pantheon where the riffs are razorwire, the blast beats are artillery fire, and the vocals sound like a demon coughing up eternity.
With Enter: Vampyric Manifestation, Pedestal for Leviathan not only get it right — they drive a goddamn stake through the heart of mediocrity and raise a blood-soaked banner of dominance. This isn’t just Brutal Blackened Death Metal. This is the sound of oblivion grinning back at you.
From the opening seconds, this record lunges for the throat and doesn’t let go. The drums don’t merely blast — they detonate. The guitars aren’t just distorted — they’re flayed alive, bleeding black noise and filth across the mix. And the vocals? Fuck me, the vocals. They’re pure hellfire — guttural, monstrous, dripping with venom and decay. It’s as if the vocalist gargled hot coals and broken glass before screaming through a cathedral of bone.
But here’s what makes Enter: Vampyric Manifestation more than just another slab of brutality — it knows when to pull back, to let the atmosphere breathe, to remind you that darkness isn’t just loud, it’s eternal. Between the chaos, there are moments of eerie stillness, brief respites that only make the next explosion of violence hit harder. Pedestal for Leviathan have mastered that dance between annihilation and ambience, creating a ritual of sound that feels both ancient and apocalyptic.
The production walks a perfect tightrope — filthy enough to keep its underground cred, but clear enough that every instrument slices through the chaos. This isn’t muddy or amateur hour. This is controlled devastation, and every blast beat and tremolo riff has been honed to a weapon’s edge.
If you’re not ready for something this intense, this suffocatingly heavy, you might want to crawl back to your comfort zone. But for the rest of us — the ones who crave the taste of iron and ash — Enter: Vampyric Manifestation is a revelation. It’s a bloodletting. It’s a sermon preached in screams and feedback, baptising the faithful in suffering and distortion.
Enter: Vampyric Manifestation by Pedestal for Leviathan is due out October 31st.
CHOICE CUT: Sanctity of Retribution
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: Pedestal for Leviathan don’t just play Brutal Blackened Death Metal — they embody it. Enter: Vampyric Manifestation is a merciless descent into chaos and fury.
