‘Behold, The end of death, Revered butchers, Sacred machines, A vision of extinction, A silicon plague’ (Nanodeath)

Now this is an absolute bruiser.  Hailing from Richmond, Virginia and featuring members of Asylum and Balaclava, this is Prisoner’s second album and follow-up to 2017’s Beyond The Infinite.  The band continue to meld a brutal fusion of buzzsaw guitar driven death metal and crushingly heavy doom metal that is further intensified by punishing industrial rhythms.  Since their debut LP, the band has added a new member to focus on programming and sampling, which sees the industrial influences notably elevated in the mix in a manner that feels utterly instinctual, with noise-infused samples further amplifying the bleakly dystopian atmosphere.

Three different members share vocal duties which lends another textural dimension to the blackened hardcore onslaught.  Fierce roared vocals are entwined and layered with rawer, more guttural growls as they render viscerally evoked apocalyptic visions of humanity’s impending demise through late-stage capitalism fuelled technocracy and environmental degradation.

The band are equally assured in unleashing blistering sub-two-minute eruptions, such as Pool Of Disgust and The Horde, as they are in fashioning much more expansive tracks as encapsulated by the dark melancholy riven Shroud and Entity.  The stand-out moments though are, perhaps, the ferociously dynamic opener, Flesh Dirge, that expertly conjures visions of a vividly reimagined Left Hand Path-era Entombed, and the unrelenting, mechanically propulsive Pathogenesis.