With a career spawned half a decade ago, Summoning Death created waves in the Underground scenery with the 2018 release of its first full-length work. "The House That Screamed" revealed a devastating dose of Death Metal somberness drinking from the evil fountain of darkness that is the old-school Finnish and Swedish sound, with a concept aptly based on old Horror film masterpieces from the 50s and 60s. Now, the time has come for the Mexican quintet to take "One Step Beyond", presenting the world with yet another purge of utterly obscure Metal of Death continuing its saga on the visual terror, this time focusing of TV series from the aforementioned era (masterfully depicted in John Quevedo Janssens cover artwork). Picking up where left on the latest album, Summoning Death's sound is furthering piercing and ferocious, with a production and mixing superbly capturing the quintessence and venom of the band's inner core. A clear yet robust and heavy sound definitively traces the elemental base of the band's audial approach to the dark past of the early 1990s yet with a contemporary touch that weighs in the arrangements and performance's favor, creating pieces of effectively timeless music. With a new vocalist in Abigail Paz, one is immediately struck by the vociferous angst, mightily topping the six-string work, a genuine feast of gargantuan riffs, from slow morbid, bleak gashes to skull-crushing fast obliterations, this is Death Metal in its purest and most striking form. The pulsing cadence of bass and drums provide the energy and momentum to these nine tomes, a rhythmic section that for the band's defining sound - stripped of over-elaborative features - sheds a variety and striking sense of dynamics, providing these 50 minutes with the strength of being a stunning experience in morbid metal without ever tumbling in repetition. Released through Chaos Records, "One Step Beyond" is a mandatory opus for any and all devotees of utter Death Metal might, supremely portraying Summoning Death as a force to be most definitely reckoned with in nowadays' scene.
