A tabby cat is what you get when you let nature take its course. Almost every stray is a tabby cat because, without selective breeding by human intervention, cats end up looking like that most of the time. Similarly, Atlanta’s Malefic give me the feeling you’d get if you let the faster variants of extreme metal reach their natural end.
Playing a style drawing inspiration from thrash, black and death metal, Malefic formed in 2007 with the stated goal of modernizing black metal. In this way, they’ve infused their slow-cooked debut Impermanence with an intensity and drive befitting an album that advances the genre. But is Impermanence the cat’s meow, or did Malefic cough up a hairball?
Just as tabbies are genetically different but visually similar, so do Malefic‘s many components blend into a kind of extreme metal slurry on Impermanence, all present but hard to identify separately. Sure, some riffs are more often one thing than another, like the Testament-like thrash chops that open “In Darkest Dreams,” or the blackened tremolo parts reminiscent of Dissection in “Blood of the Throne,” or the Opeth deathly grooves in “It Haunts.” But overall, Impermanence doesn’t lean toward one subgenre over another. Instead, Malefic‘s mutt-metal manifests with a strange, unstable force of hostility, strongly recalling the genre-blending approach Xoth adopt. Xoth is in fact perhaps the best comparison to Malefic, as the roars and screams of drummer Aaron Baumoel sound very much like their vocal duo, and the solos of guitarists Jason Davila and Sam Williams follow Xoth‘s melodically rich, whammy-friendly styles (“Idiocracy”). Backed by a rhythm section of Baumoel and bassist Andy McGraw, both of whom know how to lay down serious groove when needed (“Deserter”) and a dynamic mix, Impermanence shows that these years perfecting their style have borne fruit for Malefic. It’s a good sound!
But what confuses me about Impermanence is that in many places it seems pointless, not because Malefic can’t edit. On the contrary, every song on Impermanence is tight and focused, exceeding five minutes only once on “It Haunts.” Malefic also don’t indulge in unnecessary instrumentals or solos, as tracks like “Of Gods and Man” and “Disembodiment” show the band’s restraint in their savage playing. The problem is that Impermanence doesn’t stick with an idea long enough. “Blood of the Throne” and “Obsidian Earth” have, roughly, five riffs each in their first minutes. Instead of analyzing a few ideas, Malefic often shuffle ideas before they resolve into something sticky. This pattern is especially frustrating when they land on something great and don’t develop it, like the swinging, disconsolate riff in the second verse(?) of “Echoes of Silence” or the guitar runs that open “Obsidian Earth.” Impermanence sees a band on a mission, but perhaps also a band in too much of a hurry.
What it comes down to is that Impermanence has a sound I can’t say I’ve heard before, but also, paradoxically, is somewhat indistinct from other extreme metal albums. The aforementioned stylistic soup of Malefic is so dense with extensive inspirations and somewhat progressive tendencies (“Disembodiment,” “It Haunts”) that, apart from some serious Xoth-isms here and there, it adds up to something that doesn’t quite feel like the sum of all their influences. But at the same time, the loose structure and lack of deliberate repetition of Impermanence hampers Malefic‘s ability to create lasting hooks. Broadly, most songs start with some fanfare, rage for three to four minutes straight while Malefic rip riffs with reckless abandon like a meaner, more concise Trivium and end with little resolution. It can be very exciting and enjoyable in the moment, but I’m left with little to remember Impermanence by once it ends.
- Read also: Under – What Happened In Roundwood Review
But there’s nothing wrong with a lucky tabby cat, and there’s nothing wrong with Malefic. They’ve created a wonderful sound for themselves that more targeted songwriting could harness in a truly wild era. But where Impermanence excels in thrills, it lacks staying power, mainly in part due to Malefic‘s relentless riff hunting above all. Fans of blackened thrash, blackened death, death thrash or bethrashed black death could do much worse than give Impermanence a spin, but it’s probably not the album that would change the game and change the genre the band wanted. There’s always the second album, though…
Rating: Mixed
DR: 9 | Format reviewed: 320 kbps
Label MP3: Terminus Hate City
Websites: maleficband.com | malefic.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/MaleficBandATL
Releases worldwide: February 13, 2026
The review was done by Angry metal guy.
