{"id":310126,"date":"2026-03-03T00:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310126\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T00:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:28:08","slug":"malefic-impermanence-review-angry-metal-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310126\/","title":{"rendered":"Malefic – Impermanence Review | Angry Metal Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A tabby cat is what you get when you let nature take its course. Nearly every stray is a tabby because, without selective breeding from human interference, cats just end up looking like that most of the time. Similarly, Atlanta\u2019s Malefic feel to me what you\u2019d get if you let the faster variants of extreme metal reach their natural conclusion. Playing a style that draws from thrash, black and death metal, Malefic formed in 2007 with the stated goal of modernizing black metal. In doing so, they\u2019ve imbued in their slow-cooked debut Impermanence, an intensity and drive befitting a genre-forwarding record. But is Impermanence the cat\u2019s meow, or did Malefic cough up a hairball?<\/p>\n

Like how tabbies are genetically diverse but visually similar, Malefic\u2019s many ingredients blend into a kind of extreme metal slurry on Impermanence, all present but difficult to identify individually. Sure, some riffs are more typically one thing than another, like the Testament-like thrash chops opening \u201cIn Darkest Dreams,\u201d or the Dissectionesque blackened trems on \u201cBlood of the Throne,\u201d or the Opethian deathly grooves of \u201cIt Haunts.\u201d But taken as a whole, Impermanence doesn\u2019t lean towards one sub-genre over another. Instead, Malefic\u2019s mutt-metal manifests into an off-kilter, volatile force of hostility, recalling heavily of the genre-blending approach Xoth take. Xoth are actually probably the best comparison to Malefic, as drummer Aaron Baumoel\u2019s rasps and screams sound a lot like both of their vocal duo, and guitarists Jason Davila and Sam Williams\u2019 solos follow the melodically rich, whammy-friendly stylings of Xoth (\u201cIdiocracy\u201d). Bolstered by a rhythm section of Baumoel and bassist Andy McGraw, who both know how to lay down some serious groove when needed (\u201cDeserter\u201d) and a dynamic mix, Impermanence shows that those years of honing their style have paid off for Malefic. It\u2019s a good sound!<\/p>\n

But what confuses me about Impermanence is that it feels aimless in many places, but not because Malefic can\u2019t edit. To the contrary, every song on Impermanence is tight and focused, only running past five minutes on \u201cIt Haunts.\u201d Malefic also aren\u2019t indulging in extraneous instrumentals or soloing, as songs like \u201cOf Gods and Man\u201d and \u201cDisembodiment\u201d showcase the band\u2019s restraint within their buck-wild playing. The issue is that Impermanence doesn\u2019t stick with an idea long enough. \u201cBlood of the Throne\u201d and \u201cObsidian Earth\u201d have, like, five riffs in their first minutes or so each; instead of expounding upon a few ideas, Malefic often churns through ideas before they\u2019ve settled into something sticky. This pattern especially stinks when they land on something great and don\u2019t develop it, like the swinging, discordant riff in the second verse(?) of \u201cEchoes of Silence\u201d or the guitar runs opening \u201cObsidian Earth.\u201d Impermanence sees a band on a mission, but maybe also a band in too much of a hurry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What this amounts to is that Impermanence possesses a sound I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve heard before, but also, confusingly, one that\u2019s somewhat indistinct from other extreme metal albums. Malefic\u2019s aforementioned style-soup is so dense with expansive inspirations and somewhat progressive tendencies (\u201cDisembodiment,\u201d \u201cIt Haunts\u201d) that, besides some serious Xothisms here and there, it adds up to something not exactly like the sum of all of their influences. But at the same time, Impermanence\u2019s loose structuring and lack of purposeful repetition hampers Malefic\u2019s ability to craft lasting hooks. By and large, most songs start with some fanfare, rage for three-to-four minutes straight while Malefic tear through riffs with reckless abandon like a more evil, more succinct Trivium and end with little resolution. It can be very exciting and enjoyable in the moment, but I\u2019m left with little to remember Impermanence by the time it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

But there is nothing wrong with a tabby cat, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with Malefic. They\u2019ve carved out a great sound for themselves that more purposeful songwriting could harness into a truly hog-wild time. But where Impermanence excels in thrills, it lacks staying power, mostly in part to Malefic\u2019s restless pursuit of riffs above all else. Fans of blackened thrash, blackened death, death thrash or bethrashened black death could do a lot worse than giving Impermanence a spin, but it\u2019s probably not the genre-shaking game changer the band wanted. There\u2019s always the sophomore album, however\u2026<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

Rating: Mixed
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Terminus Hate City<\/a>
Websites: maleficband.com<\/a> | malefic.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/MaleficBandATL<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: February 13th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tabby cat is what you get when you let nature take its course. Nearly every stray is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2275,2246,18329,842,848,43836,156,152203,168974,168975,157,111,139,69,9661,762,763,168976,29873,38419,67592,168977],"class_list":{"0":"post-310126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-2-5","9":"tag-2246","10":"tag-american-metal","11":"tag-black-metal","12":"tag-death-metal","13":"tag-dissection","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-feb26","16":"tag-impermanence","17":"tag-malefic","18":"tag-music","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-opeth","23":"tag-review","24":"tag-reviews","25":"tag-terminus-hate-city","26":"tag-testament","27":"tag-thrash-metal","28":"tag-trivium","29":"tag-xoth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}