Artist: AnnulmentTitle: The Nihil of Vibrant Soul
Release: One-sided 12″ EP / Digital
Year: 2017
Label: Outer Heaven Productions & Recordings
Annulment feels like a lava violently erupting from a bubbling volcano. You can’t do much but enjoy being swiped out by their 90’s influenced metallic hardcore.
The Long Island band has been around since 2013 and this is already their fourth release to date. Released as a one-sided 12″ vinyl that includes a beautiful poster in the package, “The Nihil of Vibrant Soul” is a beast of an EP. Heavy, crushing, chaotic and razor-shaped hardcore record that leaves you hanging senseless by the end of its 17-minutes sheer intensity.
A very appealing aspect of any Annulment record is the quite obviously great attention that has been put into the lyrics. You can be sure there is a deep reasoning behind every song and their order in the EP, and I would say they actually follow a truly alchemical tradition in conveying the message to the listener. A great example for this statement is the second to last song “Unbowed Before the Devouring Sun”, which the singer Anthony John Czerwinski explains in No Echo: “It was written by reappropriating totalitarian language and turning it inward towards those same absolutist powers that either exist on a material, spiritual, or illusory level. It’s a song of clarity and a prelude to an acceptance of death through triumph, or some degree of ending. However, there’s a reason it’s not the last song on our record.”
Annulment is a fucking incredible band and if 90’s metallic hardcore with crushing breakdowns and as equally crushingly serious lyrics is your thing, get this record and put it on the shelf right there next to Pulling Teeth and Racetraitor.