Reviewed by David Pearce

Artist – Nephelium
Album – Coils of Entropy
Label – Self Release
Year – 7th February 2012

1. Burial Ground
2. Merciless Annihilation
3. Hellborne
4. Malediction
5. Halls Of Judgement
6. Coils Of Entropy

Guitarist Alex Zubair, along with drummer Alan Madhavan, planted the seeds of Nephelium in Arabian soil back in the 90s in the city of Dubai. There, they had a vision of a band with equal amounts of brutality and complexity, which stayed true to the roots of old-school Death Metal yet forged ahead with experimentation and with a proud nod to their numerous musical influences from Metal and other genres. They became Dubai’s heaviest extreme metal band, but Alex had to return to Toronto, Canada. He convinced his skin-crushing partner to follow him to North America, and there they rebuilt the beast only to see it slain once again by line-up changes.

Coils of Entropy was unleashed on fans on February 7th 2012, and the album’s been received with astoundingly positive reviews. What Nephelium offers is death metal with an array of extreme metal touches, and an undercurrent of classic thrash metal. The band seeks to remain true to the standards of acts like Death, Testament, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, and Napalm Death, while putting its own signature dynamic into the mix. The result is a stunning debut of the most punishing kind. After a long and tumultuous journey across 10 years, 2 continents and countless lineup changes, Nephelium has finally become the unstoppable Metal juggernaut in a death metal landscape currently lacking bands of this grandiose and true to their roots. Nephelium is Toronto’s premium Death Metal outfit.

The album starts with Burial Ground as soon as it starts you are hit with full on aggression with powerful growling vocals pounding drums and very good guitar riffs which continues through the whole song. Merciless Annihilation starts with a good guitar riff then explodes into the vocals with the pounding drums later in the song you have some good shredding riffs which goes well with the drums and vocals. Hellborne starts off where the last song finished with complete aggression with powerful vocals, shredding guitars and pounding drums at the speed these guys play everything is hit perfectly. Malediction is a brutal attack on your ears that will get you banging your head violently with the intensity of the vocals, guitar riffs and the pounding drums. Halls Of Judgement starts off with a heavy guitar riff then the harsh vocals come in continuing with the riff the pounding drums smash out the heavy beat that just keeps coming. The vocals go from harsh to screeching with a bat of the eye the you get a good quality solo smash through the aggression. Then it goes back to the harsh vocals and heavy guitars which continues for the rest of the song. Coils Of Entropy is the title and last song on the album and the longest but it continues with the aggressive assault that the whole album gives you. But it has got again really good riffs, solo’s, harsh vocals and the pounding drums it is a complete assault that will get you making a circle pit in your living room or wherever you are listening to it.

Overall
Coils Of Entropy is a very powerful Death Metal Album Full of aggression with heavy riffs, quality guitar solo’s pounding drums and really harsh growling and sometimes screeching vocals. In essence it is a quality album which will get you headbanging all over the place. It will also get you making a circle pit wherever you are these guys are good and I can see why they are called Toronto’s premium Death Metal outfit.

7/10

Devlin Anderson – vocals
Alex Zubair – guitars
James Sawyer – guitars
Flo Ravet – bass
Alan Madhavan – drums