«Transcendence into the Peripheral» is the only album by diSEMBOWELMENT and it came out on March 31, 1993, through Relapse Records. The band from Melbourne, Australia merged death metal with doom into something much slower and heavier, and recorded the album in 1992 at Toybox Studios. They never played live, as they split up shortly after the release.
“`Country: Australia
Style: Death-Doom
For fans of: My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Thergothon
The sound is heavily constructed death-doom: enormous, slow guitars, drums that hit like a falling mountain, and hoarse vocals emerging from the mist. On top of that hide atmospheric passages, keyboard melodies and a dark, eerie mood.
«The Tree of Life and Death» opens the album and reaches ten minutes, setting the tone right away. Also standing out are «Your Prophetic Throne of Ivory», the shorter and more direct «Excoriate», «Nightside of Eden» and the massive «A Burial at Ornans».
The album matters because it showed that death metal and doom could merge into something so extreme and yet so atmospheric. The slow tempos, rare in the scene at the time, later became a basic element for many funeral doom and atmospheric death metal bands.
The record was recorded in 1992 at Toybox Studios in Melbourne, and the band split up shortly after without getting the chance to play live. Their sound influenced many bands that came later, and their complete work was eventually collected in a double release.
Although diSEMBOWELMENT only released this album and an EP, their impact was huge and their sound remains unsurpassed. The slow, epic guitars and the heavy drums make the listening demanding, but also unique in the extreme metal scene.
See also
Cadaverous Odour – Disoriented Afterlife Existence · Epitaphe – III.
