Aversed - Impermanent (2021)

Melodic death metal unit Aversed are taking the next step in their sonic journey with the release of new album Impermanent, which sees the band begin to move away from their melodic death metal roots to embrace elements of progressive and orchestral metal. Anchored by strong musicianship, Impermanent, streaming below, is an exciting direction for the band.

Guitarists Sungwoo Jeong and Alden Marchand are constantly introducing new riffs and ripping solos, meeting somewhere between melodic death and symphonic metal; drummer Jeff Saltzman and bassist Peter Albert de Reyna (Seven Spires) lock down the rhythm section, making room for vocalist Haydee Irizarry to do her thing.

Irizarry’s greatest strength is in variety: her screams fit the death metal side of the band but her clean vocals allow the progressive and melodic side of the band to shine as well. Aversed have been compared to Arch Enemy in the past, but Irizarry’s performance on Impermanent is more similar to Alissa White-Gluz’s tenure in The Agonist.

“The album presents our own struggles with anxiety and depression reflected on the backdrop of environmental collapse on Earth,” Aversed tell Decibel. “However, like the changing mind, we present this inevitable human destruction as a chance for a beautiful rebirth, a chance for new life to flourish. We attempted to portray this imagery by combining the violence of death and black metal with the lighthearted beauty of rock & roll, blues, and classical.

“These songs reflect overwhelming anger at both the natural and human world for crumbling around us and at ourselves for not doing enough to stop it. The pockets of beauty within this catastrophe, however, are what makes creating art worth it. We intentionally took almost two years to record this beast in order to perfect every little component, all the way down to individual ghost notes and tiny ambiances, and the result irrefutably demonstrates that musical collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts. Creating this art has been transformative and I hope you enjoy this spiral into impermanence with us.”