REVIEW: Killing of a Sacred Deer – A Visage of a Mangled Body [2025]

Artist: Killing of a Sacred Deer
Album: A Visage of a Mangled Body

The larger the current deathcore revival grows, the harder it gets to not harp on its cultural roots in a ritualistic yearning for the “good old days” of MySpace, Demonoid, uTorrent and more. At the same time, starting every review of an “OG” style deathcore band with a paragraph painting a vivid picture of the late 2000s and how cool that era of music was (and is) is also tiring; if you were there, you get it, and if you weren’t you now get to experience a variety of sonic slabs that reminisce upon that era with varying degrees of quality and sincerity—and Killing of a Sacred Deer just so happen to be top notch in terms of quality and sincerity when it comes to the otherworldly style of deathcore they create. Following hot on the heels of their self-titled (and Wax Vessel) debut EP, Killing of a Sacred Deer are back less than a year later with A Visage of a Mangled Body, a crushing, short-but-sinister full length release that catapults the listener through a barrage of disjointed, dissonant, dreary and wholly devastating tracks that capitalize on the pure misanthropy of yester-decade’s deathcore. Unpredictable and uncompromising, Killing of a Sacred Deer capture and distill the purest elements of what made their debut EP a must-listen record and expand it across nine tracks of skin-rending blast beats, ear-gnawing vocals and soul-smothering breakdowns: a must listen for 2025.

If absolutely nothing else (there’s plenty else, don’t worry), A Visage of a Mangled Body is an organic and unsettling release. From the very start, Killing of a Sacred Deer create a sprawling, abyssal and grim sonic soundscape that manages to excellently balance pulverizing aggression and spacious, insipid unease. Opening track “Maria” into “Killing Prayer” is an excellent example. Mach-speed percussion and dizzying riffs wage war on the listener’s sanity, with sharp, cracking snare hits doing irreparable damage to any eardrum within striking distance. Meanwhile, the off-putting interlude “Dried Flowers Bathed in Amniotic Fluid” bridges the dense and hard-hitting “Annalise” into “An Umbral Offering,” a song that more heavily channels brutal death metal and slam into its unforgiving deathcore backbone. One of A Visage of a Mangled Body’s greatest strengths is how quickly each track lashes out at the listener, with most of them clocking in around or below two minutes in length. Each outstanding riff and pummeling seems to linger just long enough to make an impression, never overstaying its welcome or becoming repetitive, making songs feel disjointed and spastic in a way that seems to pay true homage to some of deathcore’s earliest acts. With this said, there are moments—especially those brought about by the riffs in “A Killing Prayer” and “Maria”—where the listener wishes for those riffs and chugs to linger just a little bit longer before a neck-snapping segue hurls the listener into the next sonic barrage Killing of a Sacred Deer has in wait.

Just as A Visage of a Mangled Body boasts an immolating instrumental backdrop, the band’s vocal effort is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Combining technical prowess behind the mic with a heaping helping of pure vitriol, there are few bands in the heavy music space who sound as outright vicious as Killing of a Sacred Deer do. “God’s Not Here” shines with respect to immense vocal skill, with lyrics that get burned in the back of the listener’s skull as though they’re branded without sacrificing pure visceral intensity. “Annalise” is another outstanding example, as the band’s lyrics and careful choice of samples provide a grizzly, grim number that does the record’s objectionable (but very cool) artwork proud. Perhaps the greatest achievement Killing of a Sacred Deer score for themselves on A Visage of a Mangled Body is subtle; the band manage to occupy the same space in the “deathcore revolution” as Psycho-Frame, and—though on paper the two seem as though they should be very similar—Killing of a Sacred Deer are a very different act with different focuses and strengths. This is especially important (and impressive) vocally, given Colter Adams’ recent addition to Psycho-Frame’s ranks—in spite of this, Killing of a Sacred Deer veers less towards Frame’s hyperviolent absurdity and more into the realms of visceral, gruesome horror.

A Visage of a Mangled Body is an outstanding release—and a true ode to progenitors of deathcore in all the obvious ways, but also many of the not-so-obvious. Killing of a Sacred Deer provide the spastic, unpredictable and off-the-wall songwriting that amplified the technicality found within early deathcore acts while smashing it headlong into sprawling, sinister soundscapes that are as ominous as they are frankly huge. While the entire release runs on the short side, each track is packed to the brim with things for the listener to get lost in—even if a few of those segments get cut by that same double-edged blade of being so good, the listener wants them to last just a little longer. Ultimately, Killing of a Sacred Deer do exactly what they set out to do on their debut LP: giving the listener an up-close view of a mangled body by mangling ‘em themselves.

9.5/10
For Fans Of: Psycho-Frame, Misericordiam, Knights of the Abyss, A Black Rose Burial, Serration
By: Connor Welsh