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Italy has not always been a hotbed of Death Metal bands, but Hideous Divinity have been working hard in the underground, putting out 5 albums in just 12 years, all of them bringing solid songwriting to the genre of Technical Death Metal. Lots of times bands in this vein are more into prog/jazz and weedly-weedly guitar doodling, but I really like that this is a band who remember this is supposed to be Death Metal.

The production is spot-on, giving this plenty of heaviness without losing the clarity you need—I especially like that you can hear the bass on here. The playing is, as expected, tight and intricate, but the songwriting is on a high level, and so these tracks are a lot more than just collections of riffs and leads, and they actually have identity as songs over and above frameworks for showy playing. This band seems to attach to the dark sci-fi/horror themes that work really well for this kind of music. The melodies are jagged and unfriendly, and the whole presents a churning, aggressive soundscape of alien horror and inhuman darkness. I like it a lot.