Hi, everyone. Upthony Loadtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Civerous album, Maze Envy.

This is the second full-length LP from up and coming California metal outfit, Civerous. It's their first for the 20 Buck Spin label, which drops loads of quality, left-field, dark, grim, underground metal records every year. I knew I was going to review this Civerous album from the first teaser I heard, "Labyrinth Charm", featuring vocalist Derek Rydquist of The Faceless as well as The Zenith Passage. This track was just some really great quality, raw death metal with very good guitar work, a crushingly heavy mix, as well as some progressive and dynamic elements at play, too. I'm talking oppressive doom metal levels of heaviness on the riffs and the tuning. I have not heard a death metal record quite this thick in a minute, especially with the breakdown in the last leg of this track. And while with this track, I came for the heft, I stayed for the mystical, eerie guitar arpeggios on the intro, the very righteous and epic rift passages toward the finish, and the slightly black metal-inspired midpoint that features some relentless blast beats as well as very melodic tremolo guitar lines. It's a multi-phase death metal track with a lot of great fluid, tasteful changes that are memorable and actually complement each other, as the band's not just throwing blood and entrails at the wall to see what sticks or just overwhelm the audience. Again, given this track, I had high hopes going into this album, but I just didn't really know how ambitious and flavorful it would actually be when I heard the whole thing.

The band really does land a perfect balance on this album between sound powerful and massive, but also leaving enough room in their details and mixes to bring in these extra, cool little harmonious or melodic details and embellishments. Take the song "Shrouded In Crystals", for example, which kicks off with these absolutely pounding riffs. But then eventually we get these creepy horror film-style synthesizers creeping into the song, soaring above it all and adding some cinematic tension in the process, which sets things up for the more relentless rift passages to follow. This track is an eight-minute monster, so there is a lot to come after this. Twisted chord changes, really solid drum fills, more soundtrack-worthy synth layers, and many nicely blocked out riff passages that switch things up in intensity. You're getting mosh-friendly ragers on here, as well as more dizzying chromatic licks that really hit you hard and leave you a little confused. There's a very grand and doomy finale at the very end of the track, and it's just nice to hear a band of this style looking at a song of this length and really mapping it out to make sure it functions well on a macro level because for as long as the track is, there's just so much going on across it, it doesn't get stale.

This could also be said for the album overall with its tight seven-track runtime, which includes an ominous, spacious, tone-setting intro. Also the track "Endless Symmetry", which is a serene and bitter-sweet guitar passage that really sets things up well for the following track I mentioned earlier, "Labyrinth Charm". And deeper into the record, "Levitation Tomb" really ramps things up, almost putting the two previous core tracks on the album to shame with its heaviness because those down-tuned, dissonant riff passages on the back end of the song are the hardest-hitting thing on the record by far. It's just seismic, earthquake levels of bass. Still, even at this level of thickness, of density, we're still getting these cool little extra melodic details, and it serves as a great reminder that death-doom metal doesn't need to be this tedious experience, which is important for keeping things engaging, especially since this album ends off with two very lengthy tracks, the title track and the closer, each of which are nine minutes and change, respectively.

The former really lives up to its title because it does feel like a fever dream where you're lost in various parts of a maze, and the lyrics really do add to this feeling of maze envy. "Walls beyond walls / The ecstasy within patterns and puzzles / In reverence of this mighty icon / Our complete adoration to this locus / Spirit fully immersed unto thee / I will only lay forth my all / The sounds of prayers and chants / Elated worship / In grand fashion my soul it / Screams / Eyes shut I still see them / Structures and baguettes within / Interwoven into the mind's eye / Flesh and faith separated." Eventually on the track, we get these blood curdling string passages in 3/4 with more great harmonious guitar work, too. Then to follow at the very end, just the heavier riffs, the crushing riffs come back for just a big explosive finish. Again, getting slight black metal vibes on the track, and once more, just loving the progression of this track. It's a roller coaster ride, and I'm on the edge of my seat for every moment.

The closer to follow from here actually continues on this guitar string combo, but I would say does it even better and makes even more room for the strings to the point where it's almost giving like post-rock or post-metal vibes. But with death metal-style vocals and a progressive song structure. I'm sold, especially since the string sections are so good and they really take the reins on the song at a few points. It really adds not just to the stylistic diversity of the record, but the emotional diversity of the album, too, because as the song progresses, it just feels more tortured and sorrowful. Even the vocals are coming off more pained than they were in many previous passages, where you're getting these very standard deep guttural death metal style growls. Reading more into the lyrics on the track, they also reinforce this narrative of sadness and pain. It also seems like the maze this album is about is a horrible place. It was but a façade, we have been tricked. The maze has led to great horrors.

And with that, we end the album musically, sonically, and narratively in a very profoundly dark place, which also very impressive that this record really just works in layers. It's doing stellar things on the production side, on the song structure and musical and instrumental arrangement side, on the performance side, on the songwriting and storytelling side. And finally, there's just this interesting mix of extreme and progressive metal and rock styles coming together into an album that is just very focused, very cohesive, while simultaneously balancing so many different things very well. There are some aspects to the album that I feel like didn't quite go far enough, and maybe some guitar tones and vocal passages come off a bit standard or too average for death metal today, but those are some very minor nitpicks and observations on what is just pretty much a fantastic album from a band that I think deserves way more attention than they're currently getting.

I'm feeling a light-to-decent nine on this album.

Anthony Fantano. Civerous. Forever.