24th October 2021

Review: “The Wordless Whisper” by An Unction in Braille

For the most part Metal heads will be used to bands following a certain path, getting together, writing some songs or perhaps an EP, releasing that and then playing live, building up a following and then going again with a debut album. For whatever reason, Springfield, Massachusetts Melodic Deathcore quintet An Unction in Braille – “The blessing of a dying person one must feel to understand” – went against the grain. Instead, lead guitarist Robert Meroski, vocalist Josh Veck, rhythm guitarist Kieran Beaty, bassist Wes Welch and drummer Jacob Lindquist toured up and down the east coast and supported bands in Canada, playing shows with everyone from Sworn Enemy and In Flames and Full Blown Chaos. Now almost nine years after Meroski started writing for the project and seven after Veck joined him in that, the bands debut EP is ready for release…

…who says there are rules to music? An Unction in Braille throw any kind of genre traditions and ways of doing things out of the nearest open window from the very start of opening cut “Catharsis“, chopping up pieces of Death Metal, Deathcore, Grindcore and Melodic Death Metal and putting them back together to create the kind of hybrid beast that you might find in your worst nightmares. Veck is a classic Death Metal vocalist and as the band launch into the kind of leads fans of the Gothenburg sound would kill for, combining them with vicious blast beats for a brutal verse section, his evil style impresses. Clean enough that the tales of evil can be heard but throat shredding enough to satisfy even the hardest of Metal heads. “Of The Dead” then rattles up with breakdown heavy riffs in classic Deathcore style before dropping another bone shattering blast beat section that is just immense. If for some unknown reason you’re not a fan of blast beats then you can pretty much write this off because every cut has at lead one passage that has them, like a calling card if you will. There are however a couple of moments which might take some getting used to for the purist. Believe it or not there are some early Avenged Sevenfold esq guitar moments in “An Inch From Death“, thinly veiled by the bands vicious intent and then there is a clean vocal passage in “Sickening Sweet” which is a brave undertaking to say the least. But here’s the thing. Both moments work despite on paper sounding like a car speeding across a rail crossing in front of a freight train, shattering the barrier and risking necks. From those melodies “Dark As Black” then goes all out heavy with a whirlwind of thunderous percussive battery and Veck finding some lower gutterals to match off against his usual shriller tones. You need this more than you know. [7.5/10]

Track listing