photos by Cultivision
“…Horrors Beyond is ingenious, elaborate, melodically rich, and technically accomplished…” – No Clean Singing
Horrors Beyond, the mangling debut album from New Jersey death metal crew TROG, will slam its way into society this Friday, and No Clean Singing is hosting an advance public dousing of the record’s gore-slinging ways.
Formed in 2019 by drummer Hudson Barth (Reeking Aura) and guitarist/bassist Dan Erdenberger (ex-Cypher Seer), initially under the moniker Troglorot, the current lineup is fleshed out by vocalist Pete Colucci (Apocrophex, Gukurahundi) and guitarist TJ Coon (Sentient Horror). The band independently released the Of Vomit Reborn EP in July of 2022 to great acclaim, and now sets the bar higher with their debut full-length, Horrors Beyond.
Expanding upon the groove-oriented blend of twisted death metal and relentless thrash displayed on Of Vomit Reborn, the Horrors Beyond record sees TROG double down on neck-breaking riffage while incorporating flourishes of icy black metal melody. The thirty-four-minute runtime of Horrors Beyond spans seven otherworldly tracks, ranging lyrically from interdimensional organ trafficking to the methodical obliteration of advanced ancient civilizations, and features guest vocals on “The Void” by William Smith (Afterbirth, Reeking Aura) and a guitar solo on “Interstellar Offal Dealer” by Kurtis Layne (Castrator-live).
Horrors Beyond was entirely engineered and mixed by drummer Hudson Barth, mastered by the legendary Colin Marston at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves in Queens, NYC (Gorguts, Artificial Brain, Imperial Triumphant), and features profoundly grotesque artwork from emerging Canadian visual artist Emile Roy and photography by Colin Tunney.
Hudson Barth writes, “With Horrors Beyond we feel like we really hit our stride on the songwriting front. We focused on making these songs as brutal, hooky, and concise as possible, and we believe our relentless self-editing efforts paid off in a big way. It helps that we are all better musicians now than we’ve ever been in the past, which allowed us to be more ambitious throughout the writing process. We tried to represent everything we love about all kinds of heavy metal on this record while remaining unmistakable as a death metal band, and we feel like we achieved that goal. We’re so excited to finally reveal Horrors Beyond to the world and are especially looking forward to hearing opinions on the final track ‘Ontological Shock,’ a song that spent four years in the making and is our most unique track to date by far.”
No Clean Singing writes within the meaty review accompanying their advance album stream, “…Horrors Beyond is ingenious, elaborate, melodically rich, and technically accomplished, in addition to being viscerally propulsive, occasionally brutish, vocally ghastly, and yes, downright horrifying. Not content to bow obediently to old school death metal traditions, they’ve spliced in lots of other ingredients that make the music even more thrilling, and have done so with the kind of cohesive songcraft that should cause you to come back to the songs repeatedly.”
The full-album visualizer of TROG’s Horrors Beyond is now slaying at No Clean Singing RIGHT HERE.
Horrors Beyond will drop on CD and digital this Friday, June 28th. Find preorders HERE, and watch TROG’s “Ritual Corpse Division” 3D animated video HERE and “The Void” lyric video HERE. A cassette version of the album is also drawing near via Frozen Screams Imprint.
https://linktr.ee/trogdeathmetal
https://www.instagram.com/trogdeathmetal
https://trogdeathmetal.bandcamp.com
https://linktr.ee/deathnurserx
https://frozenscreams.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/frozen_screams_imprint