Full of Hell - Garden of Burning Apparitions

Crumbling into infinity.

(Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on December 8th 2021) 

There’s nothing quite like being fashionably late, and what’s a better example of that other than covering an album 2 months after its release? Like I said earlier this year in my review of Weeping Choir, I had been looking forward to Full of Hell’s fifth full-length release ever since they had teased it on social media. 8 months after that, Garden of Burning Apparitions released, and I obviously went and listened to it as soon as I could. Did I get what I expected? Well, yes and no.
Every Full of Hell album thus far has had its own distinct identity so far, and this one is no different. Following the deathgrind madness of their previous 2 works, Garden… sees the band inject a healthy dose of mathcore influence to the mix. Tracks like “Guided Blight”, “Burning Apparition”, and “Reeking Tunnels” mix grinding death metal with spastic riffs and rhythm changes in a very fresh and exciting way that only Full of Hell can, and make for some of the most impactful moments here. Despite their sound changing from album to album, I wouldn’t mind seeing them stick with this sound for a while longer, seeing as there’s a lot to explore sonically.
While these aspects of their new experiments have borne some rather tasty fruit, there are some things I feel compelled to bring up. Garden…, unlike previous releases, is somewhat lacking in the noise department. Whereas on Trumpeting Ecstasy and Weeping Choir the experimental aspects of the band are blended with their base sound, here they have been relegated to some small and frankly inconsequential parts of the record. “Derelict Satellite” and “Non-Atomism” don’t really do much other than feel like filler in an already short record, seeing as the tracks are static and don’t really progress in any capacity. I’m not expecting every track the band makes to be as good or expansive as “Armoury of Obsidian Glass”, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them flesh out the noise, or better yet incorporate it in more of their songs. There’s also a small instance of mild self-plagiarism on “Industrial Messiah Complex”, the intro of which sounds eerily similar to that of “Thundering Hammers”, which is disappointing to hear when considering how forward thinking Full of Hell is.
The production here is surprisingly similar to what we’ve heard on previous records, despite the band not working with Kurt Ballou for this one, with Seth Manchester taking his place. The guitars are grindy and sharp, the drums are pummelling, and the bass rattles away under it all. The mixing is the same as in the previous album, with the bass being a bit buried and struggling to be heard, yet again. It’s quite the headscratching choice really, especially when considering how much it could add to the already chaotic cocktail present.
Garden of Burning Apparitions is another addition to Full of Hell’s adventurous catalogue. Imperfect as it might be, it’s another showing of how talented the band is, and despite me being slightly disappointed by it, I can’t say I wasn’t surprised by what I heard. They’ve always been a band that never liked staying in one place musically for long, and I can only hope they keep on surprising us with each subsequent release.

Highlights: Guided Blight, Burning Apparition, Reeking Tunnels, Celestial Hierarch

Rating: 81% 

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