Helsinki, Finland’s DISGUISED MALIGNANCE has today announced their signing to Prosthetic Records, with their forthcoming debut album, Entering the Gateways, due to be released on September 29. Alongside the signing and album announcement, the Finnish death metal group has shared Entering the Gateways‘ lead single Malignant Visions.
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Speaking on the album announcement, Felix Pennanen (vocals) comments: “Entering the Gateways’ songwriting approach combined with lyrical concepts and overall aesthetic form an entirety that evolves throughout the album’s runtime. First, the listener is absorbed into the hellish & twisted landscapes known from 90s death metal, surrounded with existential dread and nihilistic thoughts. As the album progresses, these landscapes and concepts start to evolve, while new ideas are introduced to the music. I think we achieved a great balance between banger riffs and otherworldly atmospheres.
“Self-producing the album allowed us to make this entirety as close to the vision in our heads as possible. From the way each instrument sounds to the colossal and atmospheric synth soundscapes, the freedom to tweak these things ourselves really added a significant amount of depth to this debut album.”
Aatos Palmu (bass) adds: “We are inspired by a wide variety of different kinds of music, and I think it can be felt and heard in DISGUISED MALIGNANCE. All of those influences together with our own artistic visions form a distinct sound and vibe. This album lays the groundwork for the ”Disguised Malignance sound” which we always aim to achieve and evolve when writing music.”
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 Entering the Gateways. Frenzied passages careen and jolt forward with a menacing intent, whilst swarming tremolos and an dexterous rhythmic backbone bring to mind greats such as Demilich and Crytopsy. Written specifically with a solidified quintet in mind, Entering 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, Entering 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 Entering the Gateways stands as a bold introduction to the band.