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This Finnish-born Blackened Death Metal beast of a band called Amanita Virosa formed in 2008, with their debut album Asystole coming out in 2015. It was a well-received and damn promising debut, and now their follow-up, Original Plague, has come to deliver what was promised: a band that kicks some serious ass!

This album is an exercise in infectious, melodic, keyboard-driven Black/Death Metal with an emphasis on the Death Metal side of that equation. The songwriting is top-notch and a clear evolution of their sound from the debut, with the closest frame of reference I can give being Insomnium and Renascent, albeit less melodic and without all the Christian themes of the latter. The songs are often epic and even a bit pompous, but they're also tight and catchy enough to avoid being drawn out and dull. If you like your extreme metal on the melodic and ambitious side, this is an album to treasure.