The EU version of EXOGALACTIC with a different layout
Strap yourself in tight to your starfighter and get ready for a relentless barrage of photon torpedoes and laser cannons that shatter your shields. Your systems have failed, you hurtle downwards and you crash-land on a hostile unknown planet ruled by fearsome alien warlords. These snarling bastards sound the charge and hunt you down over barren landscapes as you run and run. And run. This was the only way I could attempt to encapsulate the feeling evoked by Xoth’s third full length release, Exogalactic.
This album marks a true achievement for the four-piece unit based in Seattle, Washington. A four piece WHAT unit? Good question. Genres abound and meld into a chaotic formula on this album in particular- some unholy cosmic marriage of Skeletonwitch and Vektor with just enough tech-death to give it a little extra flair without falling into gross wankery.
After going through their discog, I think Xoth deserve a lot of credit for their first two full length efforts, in particular their debut, Invasion of the Tentacube. It is certainly a more raw release, but they established their identity in terms of themes almost immediately. Cosmic/sci-fi horror/fantasy is nothing new for metal, but it’s certainly not the most common and I think these guys do it well and add a certain esoteric mysticism to it which gives it a little extra depth. I think their second album, Interdimensional Invocations was a slight step back and lost some of the energy we heard on the debut. Not a bad album by any means, but seemingly lost a little of its edge.
None of that matters though, because everything led to the 39 minutes of frantic space warfare and cosmic enlightenment captured on Exogalactic. “Reptilian Bloodsport” opens the album and hurls us into a colosseum where lizard-men chant for violence and only a singular hero can survive. Great lyrical themes and imagery, but I would say one of the album's weakest tracks sonically.
Things kick up a notch from there on and in my opinion culminate in the album’s pinnacle, “Saga of the Blade.” I mean this album is just front to back, full of some delicious, tasty RIFFS and look no further for better example than this monster of a track. “KNEEL-TO-THE-STEEL!” Screaming and wailing leads abound throughout this album, complimented by chunky rhythm guitar and a VERY audible bass that just pummels you without getting lost in the mix. The drums are tight as fuck, without being boring, and let’s be real- it’s the fucking rhythm section- you don’t get a great progressive thrash album like this without an inexorable effort from the drums and bass. They keep thundering away from start to finish and only let up in critical moments to let the drama build only to come back in like a battle cruiser hurtling down at full velocity dropping a carpet bomb of plasma.
Vocally, I love the versatility we get. Traditional scratchy black-metal adjacent snarls are its primary feature but nicely balanced by a “clean” more guttural vocal, that reminds me of Mithras’s On Strange Loops. We even get the occasional deep guttural growls as added flavors. The harmonies work well together and make it sound like a whole battered army is relaying its horrific and epic stories so that you might begin to understand the sheer agony and atrocity is has witness and endured.
Yet endured they have, these battle-hardened space warriors, and perhaps like the band themselves, they now look to the stars to reflect upon all that which has come before and all that awaits them.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=Rx7Npf0ZQEQ&t=755s
