The first write-up of 2025 comes courtesy of a late-December hookup from Heavy & Fast: the debut six-song EP from D.C. death metallers Immortal Form. Clearly there's a Bolt Thrower aesthetic on the visual tip, but they don't really sound like Bolt Thrower. The vocals are definitely top-tier guttural excellence, and there's sort of a gnarled churn to the guitar tone that could be argued to bring to mind a bit of War Master vibe, but for the most part that's about it. Their approach is super dense—neither simple nor overtly technical—and has plenty of mid-paced crunch, though "Mechanized Theocratic Purification Squad" starts out with more of a fast-paced and hectic feel, which turns out to make it an outlier by the end.
Superbly powerful vocals and thunderous percussion are somehow balanced against the more chaotic edge of the guitars; bass creeps toward a noticeable level during some of the slower breaks; and the chugging mid-paced rhythms really highlight the mangled, detuned aspects of the guitar tone—quite perfect for that pacing. "Traversing the Immaterial Expanse" opens with an atmospheric intro that leads with distorted bass, which might explain why the bass can tend to get swallowed in the mix (that's not really a complaint, everything sounds pretty damn good), then leans into more of a pounding tempo that continues (after an interlude) into "God of Filth (The Plaguebearer)." "Treachery of the Warmaster"—the only song that tops four minutes—never reaches the frenzied intensity of the opener, but does explore a range of tempos and delves into some semi-melodic layering that has some of that swampy Morbid Angel undercurrent happening.
As touched on above, the cover art seems like a darker, more modern/stylized take on the type of thing that could have been on a Bolt Thrower album. The tape is housed within a double-sided, three-panel J-card containing a band photo, credits, and lyrics. There actually appear to be some Warhammer references in the lyrics, so perhaps that Bolt Thrower aesthetic runs deeper than I initially detected:
In the swirling abyss of infinity
The dark forces of Chaos gather strength
For eons they lay dormant
Awaiting a champion to lead them across the stars
Horus, the Warmaster, chosen by his father
To lead humanity to the edge of reality
Corrupted by Chaos, his jealousy
His downfall, and that of all mankind
Quite impressive that this was recorded in September and out on cassette just two months later!? As has been the case with other Heavy & Fast releases, the tape itself matches the color scheme of the art with Halloween-looking black text on an opaque orange shell—limited to 100 copies, with a free poster and sticker while supplies last.
I've done a terrible job of keeping up with all of the high-level death metal that's been surfacing in recent years, so I'm not exactly qualified to say so, but still: Immortal Form feels like a band to watch. I'd expect bigger and better things in the future...
Get It
- Heavy & Fast Records/Distro (cassette)
- Bandcamp (cassette, mp3)
- Spotify (stream)
- Apple Music (stream)
