For some comparable to an authentic, temporary descent into Hell, Disembowelment's only album Transcendence into the Peripheral is considered a forerunner of many future “Funeral Doom Metal” explorations favored by Evoken and Mournful Congregation, but, to be honest, this is strictly Death Metal, albeit one variety that fluxes among an extreme and its opposite. Apparently, the band disbanded just after its recording, its members wandering through some future projects (Inverloch, Wurms, Trial of the Bow) that never lifted off enough to be successful: so a band ended without even having the opportunity to make a career out of it.
Listeners who are accustomed with Swedish Death Metal, early Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride an especially Carcass will immediately settle into the claustrophobic production, which favors the guitar a strong, sharp sound and the drums a potent reverb that make them sound as if recorded in a claustrophobically small chamber in the depths of Earth. The cavernous initial impact is favored over B-tuned guitars offer tremolo/palm-muted casual power-chords that morph into killer breakdowns, when inserted with slower rhythms and distant clean guitar notes. The vocals consist of monotone growls or chilling harsh screaming, both being pretty echoed like the rest of the instruments. “A Burial at Omans” follows crawling rhythms and somnolent paces until 6 minutes in, and follows such bipolar dynamics until the end. With the exception of the interlude “Nightside of Eden” and some starry guitar/keyboard chording on the last track, “Cerulean Transience of All My Imaginary Shores”, the rest of the album follows pretty much the same route, which is also the album’s main defect: melodically, it isn’t memorable, although it’s surely intense.
