Diabolic Oath emerged in 2020 with their debut full length Profane Death Exodus, a war metal adjacent record that blew my mind at the time—great riffs coupled with excellent production—and started me on my journey to appreciate this much-maligned and much-misunderstood facet of extreme blackened death metal. Now, after an EP and a split with Aberration, the American barbaric conquerors are back with their sophomore LP, Oracular Hexations. I’ve been quite excited for the return of this band for a while, and wow, does it not disappoint.
Offering the listener a few seconds of respite before annihilating them with megalithic riffs, opener “Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices” does a fantastic job setting the tone for the rest of the album: biblical-level annihilation. Riffs on riffs on riffs are the order of the day here, and Diabolic Oath deliver some of the most potent examples the war metal style has seen in recent memory. And then, they switch from unfocused carnage to targeted obliteration, when about halfway through this track a militaristic beat emerges from the chaos, ending the song in a blaze of angry swarming guitars and ominous, massive drum hits. This level of brutality echoes on for the next four songs. However, it’s not just short songs that Diabolic Oath are proficient at.
The last two tracks and the longest tracks on Oracular Hexations, clocking in at almost ten minutes and a hair over eight minutes respectively, are examples of how Diabolic Oath are proficient at writing longer tracks that are given more room to breathe. A demented sort of progressive approach is taken with these tracks, each given multiple different movements, and in the end both lumber their way onto incredibly satisfying climaxes. However, while these are the crowning jewels of the record, there is a slight misstep. Both of these songs are extremely effective as closers, and with how each end—”Gathering Hordes from the Outer Worlds” on a lone organ and “Oracular Hexations Leeching” on a choir—one can’t help but think that both of these songs were meant to be the closer for this record. Instead of picking one, they were tacked on as a sort of afterthought. Regardless of this minor criticism, Diabolic Oath have concocted a very satisfying riff-based crusher of a blackened death metal record, and it’s going to set a very high standard for other war metal and war metal adjacent bands for the rest of the year.
