Most Dissonant Death Metal has the unfortunate effect of making me want to fall asleep, but then keeping me awake with cutting squeaky noises, making for an angry Gatorrr usually. Nightmarer sidestep this completely on Deformity Adrift by opting for a somewhat softer (dynamic) production that allows for its most percussive moments to hit like a brick. Good, now I can fall asleep? Not so fast, because while this album is mostly uniform in its warm sound, repeat spins reveal a lot of small intriguing details. The songs on here are built up to be texturally the similar, with abundant use of palm mutes (or potentially half-palm mutes) that gives the riffs a choppy, falling effect. But unlike how this technique is regularly used in Djent, the result here is a massive sound that is injected with the flavor of dissonant leads – not taking the place of the main course. Lead-in track “Brutalist Imperator” shows that this approach works by being equally bludgeoning and smart in how it erases any monotony by lurching into a groove at just the right moment.
As the album barely passes half an hour, most of the songs only have time enough to focus on a single solid idea: “Baptismal Tomb” leads with winding riffs and glides into a subdued moment with a well placed bass solo, “Suffering Beyond Death” has a very active drum performance and leaves space for the vocals to join in the percussive fun and “Taufbefehl” uses a sample and carries a pounding military rhythm that inserts just enough variety to make the album flow, to name a few. Some of the material also slows down enough to make this Death Metal band reach slightly into Doom infested ground, just enough to complete the dour atmosphere. While not perfect (“Throe of Illicit Withdrawl” and “Endstadium” can feel like they add very little), even the instrumental lost-ghost-tune of “Tooms” hints at an ear for pacing. Deformity Adrift is much like its well done album cover: warm and comfortable to take in, while you ponder which of its limbs go where.
