As soon as “The Rise of Dubitumen” starts playing, you would never think that a title as massive as The Cannibalistic Star that Devours Cosmic Flesh Beyond the Hollowed Universe belongs to a black metal record, because what you hear at first feels closer to a jazz warm-up session than anything remotely harsh. It is an intriguing way to open an album, like the calm before the storm that is “The Dreadful Sun”, the advance single that steps in right when things finally start to heat up.
With a sound that brings to mind the genre’s 90s heavyweights like Inquisition, Bathory, Immortal, and Darkthrone, South Africa’s Derisor do their job well, delivering simple riffs that are still extremely satisfying to an ear properly trained in black metal. The multi-instrumentalist Dread goes for a raw production that ends up playing in his favour, because it supports the atmosphere he is trying to build. And then there are the instrumental breaks between vocal lines, where the guitars are left alone to command a heavy, urgent, stripped-down sound, which is honestly one of the best things this album does, as “Retching Blood” makes clear. Not that the record is better without vocals, nothing like that. The voice is one of the album’s strong points. But it is an album that knows how to breathe, giving the strings space to shine as they lock in with the drums.
The fact that Dread uses the same signal chain across every track makes the album feel like one long, varied, and genuinely interesting 38-minute piece, which is a positive thing at a time when people would rather live inside playlists built around their favourite singles than sit with an album from start to finish and actually absorb its atmosphere and intensity. Every so often, spoken voices appear like an old horror-film lead, adding that B-movie flavour, while the drum patterns keep shifting in a way that helps each track stand apart early on.
There are calmer moments, like “A Blasphemous Lament”, and there is also a clear taste of Mayhem’s Deathcrush in the unsettling speed you hear through much of “The Moon Cried Blood”. “The Flesh of a Star” carries the scent of that same era I mentioned earlier, even if some of the names tied to it now come with an asterisk, and the album closes with “Sun of God”, a track that refuses to slow down and throws in one of the few solos you will hear across the entire runtime of this beautiful, dark piece of black metal.
Released on December 1st, 2025, The Cannibalistic Star that Devours Cosmic Flesh Beyond the Hollowed Universe is the kind of record that asks for 38 minutes, and gives you the full 38 back.
