apanthropy

Lividus
Scarabaeus
Nameless Grave Records
Released: April 14th, 2026

Rating: 8.5/10

“…Lividus cycle through bruised shades of modern technical death metal, grind, and heavy thrash. The vocal attack ranges from the operatic and angelic to the ugly and scowling, riffs run from discord to melody, drums are torrential and constant. Light against darkness, but destructive in intent, like firebombs thrown in the dead of night.”

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1 – Scarabaeus
2 – Jettatori
3 – Amphisbaena
4 – Viaticum
5 – The Empty Circle
6 – They Blew the Flies from Their Lips Before They Spoke
7 – Sealing the Wound
8 – Make No Mark
9 – Sulphur
10 – The Aftermath of the Flood
11 – A Reminder Of
–

Like arterial blood on canvas, Lividus invokes extreme contrast to levels that feel and seem chaotic, almost psilocin-like in nature. The vermilion red on pure white; aggressive, frantic, and uncomfortable. What Scarabaeus accomplishes musically is a violent blend of progressiveness, melodicism, and blistering riff and rhythm intensity. Never adhering or attempting to adhere to one singular definition of ‘extreme,’ Lividus cycle through bruised shades of modern technical death metal, grind, and heavy thrash. The vocal attack ranges from the operatic and angelic to the ugly and scowling, riffs run from discord to melody, drums are torrential and constant. Light against darkness, but destructive in intent, like firebombs thrown in the dead of night.

11 songs, 33 minutes. A short existence. Yet an entire existence brought to being like collapsing stars. Released April 17th, 2026, through Nameless Grave Records, Scarabaeus serves as the band’s debut effort. A stark display of songwriting power, a dynamo of churning musical ideas, not just riffs and drums, but animation, movement, predatory dictions. The stretch of tones and sonic ranges explored on the new record range from ethereal to violently confrontational. One could take the punishment of Fuck the Facts, marry it to the pure animalistic approach to composition that a band like Defect Designer takes and throw in shades of Cephalic Carnage, Unexpect, and Anata, and we’re starting to scratch the surface.

Tonality and production are like the gleam of a knife’s edge. Crisp, sharp, concise, riffs boom and breathe with life, drums are insistent, and vocals are a beautiful narrative driver, split between two extremes, creating their own warzone in the mix. Guitars have a punchy mid-range presence, bassier tones are still crisp and terse and those in the higher registers are as sharp as broken glass. Bass is deep, warm, with an actual presence, not just a doubling of notes, the rigid spine of the complex machination. Drums are frantic, biting staccato bass notes, sharp snare, and the spatial splashes of cymbals.

The title track opens Scarabaeus, but a short half-minute of atmospheric conjuring, sharply twisting into the roiling destruction of ‘Jettatori.’ Drums fire like machine-gun sweeps, consistent in formation, unpredictable in movement, from the pomp of crushing double-bass to the head-on blasting. Riffs move and break in controlled chaos, exhibiting extreme touches of melody and discord, tremolo grinding with vigorous chord voicings, palm-muted accents and other-worldly tapping, there are few techniques not taken from the arsenal and deployed here. There are phrases linked to one another where the delivery becomes overwhelming, and it’s a great feeling to experience.

Like a nerve-gas shower, ‘Amphisbaena’ is a crippling attack on the senses. A thrashier concept of death metal, merging with long-drawn out warped melodies, an expansive palette of tones used to paint Rorschach images of the permanently damned. The vocal attack is poignant and distressing, lead work is brief, flaring, and melodically bright.

Ethereal tapping brings in pounding drums and soaring vocals on ‘Viaticum,’ a masterclass in contrast, from the internal note structures of the riffs to the vocal pairings, to the entirety of the end delivery. The relationship between guitar and drums is saturated and flourishing with detail, a pairing of intertwined serpents, locked in a strangling dance with one another.

Deep in the album lay ambush in the form of tracks such as ‘Make No Mark’ and ‘The Aftermath of the Flood,’ excellent cuts deep in the record to keep the blood flowing and the attention trapped. One being a sweeping progressive monstrosity of expansive riffing and dense, downpour-style drumming and the other being a death thrash manifestation in the vein of VoidCeremony or Veilburner.

Debut albums need to hit big. They need to cut through the noise and strike with an impact. They need to grab the listener by the throat and slam their brain into the wall. Scarabaeus is a fine example of what happens when everything is done right with a debut record. In some senses angelic, in other senses, immensely destructive, but a relationship in sound that is directly connected despite its intense differences. Short enough for repeat listens, dynamic enough that each track becomes a character on its own, and enough detail and geometry to keep things fresh spin after spin. Lividus adds their name to the already burgeoning Pacific Northwest scene, and their debut effort is a technical work of aural decimation, one worth checking out for those into the complex, progressive, and churningly aggressive.

Label: Nameless Grave Records
Band: Lividus

AJK