The day bands stop writing about HP Lovecraft will be the day the seas boil and the soil turns to dust. I am sure there is more of a Lovecraftian way to phrase that sentence but that is what you are getting. All manner of bands have used the 20th century horror writer as a starting point in heavy metal. While some accent their work with Lovecraft references, other are entirely consumed with madness. Welcome to Innsmouth, home of the Esoteric Oder of Dagon and the Australian death metal band of the same name.

Consumed By Elder Sign is the band’s debut with track lengths that are both surprising and hypnotic. 6 to 8 minutes maybe a little long for some death metal, yet Innsmouth’s dedication to a riff based death template makes those long nights enjoyable. Enjoyable and consumed by otherworldly fear. I feel all of these jokes about menacing fear never really become clear until listening to “Thrice Blessed Shub-Niggurath” which begins with a horrid child cry followed by a barrage of old school riffs and the lingering vocals which haunt the landscapes. Other songs like the title track throw the entire sound off a cliff with looming instrumentation which hangs like bats on terrible looking trees. Consumed by Elder Sign nails the dread tinted themes which made so many old death metal records so great.

It is interesting hearing Lovecraft through a death metal lens rather than abstraction as with Portal or even the quasi related texture of Darkspace. The straightforward horror with Innsmouth is enough to make them worth rooting for. The album is out on Abyssmal Sounds and good luck to anyone that finds out how much the actual price of a cd is as I have yet to find it. I know there is a joke here about Lovecraft and obscure horrors but I am not smart enough to pull it off.