Written by Nikolai Dineros
There is something that is always so endearing about acts in the peripheries of the Filipino metal scene. For a genre so predicated on turbulence and density, bands like the Lagueno old school death metal group Nullification somehow know just when to fill those crevices with noise and violence.
Enter ‘Kingdoms to Hovel’, Nullification’s nine-track project under Personal Records and Metal Choice Cut Records, produced around the third quarter of 2021 in Laguna, Philippines, before making its way to Walpole, Massachusetts, where it was set for physical release in January 2022.
‘Kingdoms to Hovel’ is all about fundamentals. Even the progression in its name, or the bareness of its medieval, almost Macbethian cover art, is suggestive of this idea. But for an OSDM album, one would think fundamentals seems like a redundant descriptor. As ironic as it sounds, this is the one glaring factor commonly overlooked by new DM bands in their tribute-to-the-past records (I’m looking at you, Gruesome). Nullification succeeds in elegantly incorporating the nostalgia factor without leaving it stale.
Inspect the first track ‘Intro to ‘Annihilation’ on your first playthrough and you will most likely already know what to expect: a minute-long ambient tone-setter that slowly builds up power before cutting off at the last second, only to immediately throw you into the brutal pit that is the second track ‘Sledgehammer’ – the ‘actual’ first song, if we’re to be technical about it. Nothing new, but it’s so rich and well-executed that can never get enough of it.
On that note, ‘Sledgehammer’ is like a proper poster child of Obituary and Morbid Angel, touched up enough to sound like a tribute to the genre’s formative years whilst sounding fresh in 2022. The drum work is crisp, the vocals are bloodcurdling, and the guitars are fast and unforgiving, as can be said about the other tracks.
‘Calamity from the Skies’, with its dissonant drum beats complementing the ebbs and flows of the guitars and lyrics, portrays destruction raining down from the skies, headed towards you.
‘Negated Fields’ has to be one of the biggest highlights in ‘Kingdoms to Hovel’ for how well it represents the band working seamlessly as a unit. Everything about this song gels perfectly with one another. Vocalist and bassist Rozel Leaño is at the top of his singing game. His growls are as graceful and as ‘death metal’ as they can possibly be. The solo near the end is blazingly fast and melodic, and reminded me a lot of the same section of ‘In Death’s Sleep’ by Dismember from their 1991 album ‘Like an Ever Flowing Stream’.
Nullification proves that Filipino old school death metal can still break out of the mold while staying fundamentally rooted – a medieval fantasy opus that you know all too well but somehow manages to always keep you at the edge of your seat.
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