REVIEW: Pathos Departure – Throw it Down the Hill [2014]

Band: Pathos Departure

Album: Throw it Down the Hill

Preview: Youtube

Pathos Departure is a band that makes noise, they suck at making music and are too soft to ever get it right. In short; they’re a failure and you should look elsewhere for legitimately heavy music.That’s what their Facebook description would want you to believe at least. If you would actually listen to one of their songs from the debut release Throw it Down the Hill, you will soon discover that all of that is one big sarcastic lie. You will also discover that what you’re hearing is in fact pretty fucking solid and brutal in every sense of the word! Either my standards have been significantly lowered overnight, or Pathos Departure is another one of those essential bands you didn’t know you needed until now.

Throw it Down the Hill is the type of album that will instantly take over the listener’s free will. When The Suit of Happiness starts to play, chaotic screams, earth-shattering drum pounding and bouncing guitars take root and force the victim into an addictive state. For a band that seemingly doesn’t give a fuck, Pathos Departure brings a very focussed effort to the overflowing table of heavy-as-shit music, worthy of your attention. Not just the instrumentals, but the production on Throw it Down the Hill is what makes it all so addictive in the long run, the way how the bouncing breakdowns erupt above everything else is simply fucking perfect, they slither into your ears like Vaseline and become solid concrete when they burrow inside your skull . The tempo never slows down, never lingers, you won’t even get some instrumental or atmospheric track. Just relentless heaviness, all the fucking time! The only chance of rest you’ll get is when the ominous intro track Ear Elephant plays again, since this album will be stuck on repeat for quite some time. Apart from the glorious production, endless replayability and total disregard of what other people might think, Throw it Down the Hill is VERY angry.  Malicious screams and beastly gutturals defile the album with their misanthropic messages, which are (from the lyrics I know so far) VERY tasty.

At this point, it doesn’t matter what genre Pathos Departure is, they probably don’t even know themselves. All you need to know is that Throw it Down the Hill combines various influences from deathcore, grindcore and brutal death metal and somehow manages to make all that sound catchy as fuck. So what more do you need me to say? It’s filthy, it’s angry, it’s everything you would want from an underground metal release, did I mention it was angry? Go stream this right now, then go buy it, then burn it to a CD. Take the CD to your car (throw the old one down the hill if needed).  Proceed to blast this album whenever possible and you won’t ever have to worry about those annoying people (especially during rush hour) again, suddenly those useless meatbags have become nothing more than bonus points for your new high score! Also, I hope all you people haven’t finished your end-year lists yet, because surprisingly good releases such as this WILL fuck you up, you never knew you wanted it until the album hits you in the face. Throw it Down the Hill does not only hit your face, but also breaks it, crashes down on you and crushes you into the ground, again and again.

Rating: 9/10

For fans of: Invoker, Fate Worse Than Death, My Autumn, Chamber of Malice