Nosferatu is worth mentioning as the "Symphony of Horror" tag is the best description I can muster for the dark forces working within An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood. Over the course of the album's 46 minutes, Gnaw Their Tongues produces a lurching, hallucinogenic wall of sound teetering between bleakness and beauty. Channeling the headspace of serial killers and other psychopaths, the band imbues Epiphanic with an aura of menace and sadism. It is ugly music describing ugly acts, the only polish coming by way of the band's eerie orchestral flourishes. Between the black metal shrieks, the gloomy guitar trudge and eerie string passages skittering in the darkness, "A Symphony of Horror" indeed.

Opening with the clash and bang of "My Body is not a Temple, nor a Vessel, but a Pile of Sickness," Epiphanic unfolds as a jarring journey through the darkest parts of the human psyche. Hazy doom plods forward, stomping over banshee wails and creepy audio samples. Eventually fading into a swell of ominous string instruments, it is a traumatizing introduction which showcases the unorthodox nature of the band.

"Teeth that Leer like Open Graves," meanwhile, delivers subtle, nuanced scares. Soft but menacing ambience backs a recording of a serial killer describing his exploits, all before misanthropic doom fills the quiet. Caustic howls pierce through the low-end abuse, skewing the line between torturers and tortured. In a moment of frightening genius, a passage of ethereal noise reveals the conclusion of the recorded interview, the likes of which is as shocking as the renewed riff assault which follows.

"Sawn Asunder and Left for Beasts" showcases the band's nuanced order amidst chaos, a heartbeat of bass and percussion snaking through layers of senseless noise. Cinematic in scope, the song's dirty rumbling rings the ears while leaving a loathsome sensation in the space between them.

Following this, the title track rapes a ghostly choir of voices with thunderous percussion and aural hurt not unlike shattering glass. As the dissonance builds, the band strips it away with a stunning interlude of classical music. Said interlude eventually explodes, igniting into a clamor of messy cacophony amongst the album's most disorienting moments.

Kicking off with queasy riffs, "The Sewer Rats of Calcutta" slithers through grimy tunnels of sound. All parts of the song – drums, guitars, bass, samples and more – echo in a warped, cavernous space. Thrilling yet nauseating, it rattles like coffin bones in the middle of an earthquake.

"And There Will Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow" presents a hollow-sounding clean riff backed by chimes and other quiet, ringing instruments. Out of the morass, string instruments streak at the listener like a flock of bats before vanishing in smoggy drum and guitar sadism. A militant voice extols the necessity of "killing them all" while the atmosphere thins, revealing nothing but unresolved tension.

Last but not least is "The Urge to Participate in Butchery," a song which closes the album with a mix of funeral doom and suicidal black metal. The percussion is dull and methodical, while the other instruments toss and turn behind heavily distorted shrieks. Half way into the song, the percussion begins ticking like a clock as shimmering riffs ooze out of the darkness. A final blizzard of vile noise closes the disc, providing the morbid finale necessary for an album of this nature.

An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood is a challenging record, one which examines the grotesque through new lenses of depravity. The ichor pumping through its heart of darkness is a delicate balance between splendor and squalor, neither side truly overwhelming the other. At the end of the day, Epiphanic is such a disgusting work as it forces listeners to hear a form of beauty in evil they may not know existed. I cannot recommend it for all my readers, but those with an open mind should find this a unique listen.