Hailing from Helsinki, Finland, Prosthetic Records signees DISGUISED MALIGNANCE will be releasing their forthcoming debut album, Entering the Gateways, on September 29. The Finnish death metal group’s inaugural full-length sees DISGUISED MALIGNANCE settling into a full line-up for the first time in their four year history, with Entering the Gateways mining the depths of ontological horror and celestial transcendence.
DISGUISED MALIGNANCE’s formative years up until this point has seen the group operate primarily as a duo, with vocalist Felix Pennanen and bassist Aatos Palmu forming the band in 2021, and carefully constructing the band’s foundational sound of old school death metal sensibilities with a calculatedly modern view of technical songwriting embellishments. The young band’s dichotomous approach to the genre was evidenced in their early demo and 2023 promo tapes respectively, before Pennanen and Palmu found themselves with growing ambitions for the band.
Commencing writing and recording in 2022 with their core pairing, DISGUISED MALGINANCE display a musical chemistry far beyond their years on Enter the Gateways. Frenzied passages careen and jolt forward with a menacing intent, whilst swarming tremolos and a dexterous rhythmic backbone bring to mind greats such as Demilich and Cryptopsy. Written specifically with a solidified quintet in mind, Enter the Gateways ushers DISGUISED MALIGNANCE’s more textured passages into the fold – look no further than Disengagement into Eternity or Remnants of Serenity – that invoke more modern death metal acts such as Tomb Mold and Blood Incantation.
Inspired heavily by Lovecraftian horror and armed with an esoterically eldritch unease at the simultaneously unknown and unknowable, Enter the Gateways oscillates between the physical and the otherworldly throughout its 34 minute runtime. DISGUISED MALIGNANCE’s ambitions to take death metal’s elemental parts and impart their own verve and voice into the genre are plain to see on their first full-length, and it’s a testament to their natural talents that Enter the Gateways stands as a bold introduction to the band.
DISGUISED MALIGNANCE is:
Felix Pennanen – vocals
Aatos Palmu – bass
Daniel Gamache – guitar
Tuure Suomalinen – guitar
Juuso Hämäläinen – drums
