Style: technical death metal, neoclassical metal (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: First Fragment, Necrophagist, The Faceless
Country: Canada
Release date: 1 April 2026

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As each seminal tech death release has pushed the genre further into inhuman precision, denser composition, and increasingly pristine production, it seems the genre has stopped asking whether it should and instead focused entirely on whether it could. Vitrified Entity’s 2021 debut LP Eternal Vitreous Dissolve danced upon that distinguishing line, and now sophomore effort Imum seeks to do the same. How far can a dazzling, hyper-articulated display of instrumental excess be pushed before it snaps?

Employing the sleek and shiny style of technical death metal made popular by Necrophagist and redefined for the modern era by bands like The Faceless and First Fragment, Vitrified Entity deploys all the usual bells and whistles expected from the genre on Imum. Programmed drums blast along invariably, emphasizing each riff with on-the-dime bursts of inhuman double bass and offbeat snare hits. Fretless bass, courtesy of Eetu Hernesmaa, snakes and sizzles its way through the graticulated pillars of drumwork, providing a much-needed—and blessedly always audible—human edge to the rhythm section. But it is Alice Simard’s guitars, free from the shadow of any vocals, that claim the bulk of the album’s spotlight with their contrapuntal fury.

Tech death guitarwork has always taken cues from classical music with its emphasis on melody and counterpoint, but rarely is that influence so well-realized as it is on Imum. Each guitar track, squarely situated in its own side of the stereo spectrum, seems to operate independently to the point where I have devoted entire listens focusing on just one speaker at a time and have come away hearing entirely different albums. Of course, the guitar tracks are meant to be heard concurrently, and it is in doing so that Simard’s vision becomes clear. Melodies dance across the stereo spectrum, slicing my brain in two. Binaural dissonance glints and twinkles ever so subtly at the passing of the melodic baton as rhythmic motifs shift and evolve in elegant call and response. Across Imum, this polyphonic interplay is the star of the show, and it is clear that Vitrified Entity devoted most of their effort into making sure it came across well. However, in doing so, it seems that other aspects of the album fell to the wayside.

The area of Imum that suffers most from this inattention is the production. To my ear, it seems that Vitrified Entity was offered the choice between heft and clarity and at every opportunity chose the latter. So while each pick, pluck, and polyrhythm is clearly enunciated, the album lacks impact. This is felt most on tracks like “Reigne entomique,” where big chord hits fall flat, or “Opulence dégoutante,” where the chuggier outro feels meager following the song’s melodically rich front half. Additionally, the unwavering devotion to technically euphoric riffage impacts the album’s solos which, slower-paced in order to distinguish themselves from their blistering surroundings, simply cannot compare to the magnificence of the riffs which gird them. Although I admit I’m a sucker for them, the few bass solos do actually manage to stand out.

Like most tech death albums, there seems to be a highly convoluted sci-fi narrative¹ underpinning the sonic chaos on Imum that picks up where the last album left off. And like most tech death albums, I couldn’t give less of a crap about it, especially considering the album’s instrumental nature. Thankfully, you don’t need to know the inner workings of a fictional universe or know how that wolf on the cover art does its braids to enjoy the heaping load of tech death wizardry on display. One album may be a fluke, but a second album defines a trajectory, and with Imum, it seems that Alice Simard and Vitrified Entity are set on dancing upon the line that defines what modern tech death should and could be doing. Where Imum ultimately falls is up to each listener to decide, but I personally would love more from Vitrified Entity in the near future.

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Recommended tracks: Opulence dégoutante, Imum, Reigne entomique
You may also like: Equipoise, Brainblast, Alienist
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Vitrified Entity is:
– Alice Simard (rhythm & lead guitars, composition, conceptualization and story)
– Eetu Hernesmaa (fretless bass & lead guitars)

1.  Each track has a small amount of associated prose that can be found on the Bandcamp page. ↩︎