Band:	Venenum
Album:	Trance Of Death
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	March 2017

01. Entrance
02. Merging Nebular Drapes
03. The Nature Of The Ground
04. Cold Threat
05. Trance Of Death Part I - Reflections
06. Trance Of Death Part II - Metanoia Journey
07. Trance Of Death Part III - There Are Other Worlds...

The six-year gap between the Venenum recordings, 2011's Venenum EP and 2017's Trance Of Death full-length debut, was clearly a time well spent for the Germans and they used it wisely to develop their sound and expand their musical horizon.

When vocalist/bassist F.S.A. was asked to describe Trance Of Death, he replied: "Immense. Intense. In trance." The reference to one of the most iconic and genre-pushing albums in the history of death metal, Phlebotomized's Immense, Intense, Suspense, was clear. And it takes a big set of balls to dare such reference, so you'd better be delivering. And Venenum delivered in spades.

Trance Of Death is an adventurous, dynamic and diverse release with long structures and innovative ideas that expand the sound of their debut EP. In many ways it is still old school death metal, which means that it often comes across as rather brutal due to the face-smashing riffs, but the song structures are complex and nonlinear, with softer sections weaved into the more heavy parts. Its character is rather progressive with frequent twists and turns, tempo changes and breaks, and Venenum are using '70s-sounding prog passages and psychedelic elements to avoid any sense of monotony, but without showing off by shoving their high quality musicianship and progginess in your face; the ever changing music is just their way of creating a unique cosmic atmosphere.

The organic-sounding production further enhances the retro feeling that the natural approach and authentic songwriting exudes. Said songwriting is simply brilliant and easily smokes most contemporary releases of the scene, but at the same time this is a quite demanding album because it's so multi-faceted. Even though it is obvious upon first listen that this is something extraordinary, it takes time for it to completely sink in and be fully absorbed. You know that an album is special when you first play it as background music while doing something else, but you continuously find yourself interrupting whatever it is you're doing because something in the music steals your attention. And this happened to me way too often with Trance Of Death.

I can't really single out a passage, but I can tell you that the title track is the glorification of death metal, a trilogy that encapsulates all the striking characteristics mentioned already in this review, with its lyrics dealing with death as a journey and a transition of body and mind.

Death metal can be a very boring and repetitive genre and, among all the redundant releases, it is difficult to find the truly standout albums. However, Venenum's Trance Of Death - along with Morbus Chron's Sweven, Tribulation's The Formulas Of Death, and Chapel Of Disease's ...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye - is easily at the top of death metal albums for the 2010s.

"Lo and behold
The curtain as it falls
There are other worlds..."