photos by Savannah Bagshaw
Like all bands that meld metal’s numerous disparate incarnations, Vancouver’s ATRÆ BILIS are not easily pigeonholed. Death metal, atmospheric dissonance, tech brutality, and much more are all thrown into the ATRÆ BILIS meat grinder coalescing beautifully and disturbingly into their own signature fusion like a perfectly functioning innovative machine.
On their new album Aumicide, the follow-up to the band’s 2021 debut full-length, Apexapien, ATRÆ BILIS has taken axiomatic strides in expanding the scope of their elegantly perplexing mélange of incinerating invocations. Sounding both crushingly concrete and slickly organic, the band amputates all boundaries, injecting Cyberdyne slams, serrated inscrutability, and unfettered new magnitudes of vocal abuse. Conceptually as committed as it is musically, Aumicide tells of a test specimen subject to experiments in faith removal by intromitting simulations of Hell to sever the self from the multiverse, resulting in the genesis of a new era; an egregore engineered by an absolute godlessness.
Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Christian Donaldson of Cryptopsy, the massive production on Aumicide utterly pulverizes, elevating the Canadian power to uncharted extremities of deadly heaviness. This manifestation results in one of the most singularly ambitious underground releases of 2024, propelling the often-backward-looking death metal genre unflinchingly into a far more terrifying future.
The album is completed with cover art featuring a sculpture by Michael Perry and Angela Webber at Grayhouse Studios, photography by Rob Zawistowski and Savannah Bagshaw, and the layout and design by Marko Jerković at Wrathdesign. Fans of Ulcerate, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Neuraxis, Beyond Creation, Gorguts, Afterbirth, Deeds Of Flesh, Dying Fetus, Decapitated, and Circle Of Dead Children must hear ATRÆ BILIS’ Aumicide.
With the release of “Salted In Stygia,” guitarist and lyricist David Stepanavicius reveals, “Any song could have been selected as a single, for each is one smaller part of a greater whole. However, ‘Salted In Stygia’ was chosen for it accounts the artwork image. At this locus of the album’s concept, an apparatus designed to ingress a synthesized Hell, has been punctured into the nervous system of a test subject. Why? To manipulate the causality of manifestation, and to orchestrate the hologram.”
“Just like our previous releases…” he continues, “you can expect the story arc to include another dismal rebirth. However, between this single and that junction, Aumicide recites the snuffing of the human spirit, as experienced from the inside.”
Stepanavicius goes on to note… “Hermeticism observes, [that] ‘He who understands the principle of vibration, has grasped the spectre of power’ – Curiously, one need not seek too far to find that Aumicide has apparently already materialized an inverse version of itself. If that isn’t power, I’m not sure what is.”
The lead single from ATRÆ BILIS’ Aumicide, “Salted In Stygia,” is now playing everywhere including YouTube HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Aumicide will be unveiled on LP, CD, MC, and digital platforms April 19th. Find preorders for all formats and merch at the 20 Buck Spin webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Aumicide Track Listing:
1. Protoxenesis
2. Hell Simulation
3. Salted In Stygia
4. Inward To Abraxas
5. To Snuff The Spirit Guides
6. Aumicide
7. A Kingdom Of Cortisol
8. Monolith Aflame
9. Through The Hologram’s Cervix
10. Excruciate Incarnate
ATRÆ BILIS is actively confirming tour dates surrounding the release of Aumicide, confirmed to play at Northwest Terror Fest 2024 with Amenra, Forbidden, Repulsion, Weekend Nachos, Eternal Champion, Primitive Man, and many more including labelmates Ascended Dead, Daeva, Immortal Bird, Ulthar, and Kommand. Watch for a more extensive tour announcement to post next week.
ATRÆ BILIS Live:
5/09-11/2024 Northwest Terror Fest @ Neumo’s & Barboza – Seattle, WA [info]
ATRÆ BILIS:
Jordan Berglund – vocals
David Stepanavicius – guitars
Luka Govednik – drums
Miles Morrison – bass
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