“I really hate when people call us, like, technical or progressive death metal,” says Dave Kirsch over Zoom, to which Ray Conde adds, “But you get why they do.” They are the bassist and vocalist, respectively, of Noxis, and it’s a tad humorous that they abscond the tags given the facts. Both come from a progressive rock background, their debut album Violence Inherent in the System is built on the back of odd time signatures, and there are clarinets and bongos along for the ride, too. But the Cleveland outfit isn’t trying to be progressive. In reality, it’s the opposite; the impression they want to sear into the minds of their audience is that they are, in the face of all the bells and whistles, fucking death metal.
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To solidify that, they dropped the strongest death metal record of this past summer. Violence Inherent in the System, released through Rotted Life Records, demonstrates a specific vision of the subgenre that pulls from a select group influences and treads down paths still unventured by larger death metal trends. There’s plenty to unpack with that assessment, so let’s start with what’s most prominent in Violence Inherent in the System’s opening moments–Kirsch’s bass. It’s so pronounced that Kirsch’s jokes about being the lead bassist are barely jokes. It’s as if the bass break on Cryptopsy’s “Slit Your Guts” gained sentience and enacted revenge for its siblings who have been smothered under subpar mixing. While Cryptopsy is a clear influence on Noxis, Kirsch’s main idol is even more depraved.
“I remember when we were mixing the record, he added in the notes, ‘Alex Webster bass.’ Like, he still says it to the T,” Conde says. Kirsch then adds, “When we played Cincinnati, I just said ‘Alex Webster Cannibal Corpse. Just make sure my bass is present.‘”
Interestingly, although Kirsch may be more death metal oriented now, he grew up playing fusion and has played in multiple progressive bands. Meanwhile, Conde’s father performed in Rush cover bands. Despite forgoing any overt prog leanings in Noxis, it’s impossible to amputate them from the group’s DNA. On more than one occasion, Conde asked Kirsch to bob his head while playing bass so that the time signature could at least have a visual cue. Kirsch, for his efforts, would try to ease this for his bandmates. “My problem in the past would be that I would slow down because Ray was playing or somebody’s playing slower. He’d then tell me, ‘No, play how you want to play it. Stop slowing down.’”
Their mutual musical aptitude is what initially brought them together. They met through Craigslist in 2019, but only because Kirsch’s first pick through the site couldn’t keep up with him and thus referred him to Conde, who is more well-known as a drummer. At that time, Conde wasn’t a dyed-in-the-wool death metal guy, but all Kirsch needed to hear was how he could play blast beats. The groove they shared as bassist and drummer became the basis of their bond and pushed Conde to pursue death metal. Though he no longer drums for Noxis and instead focuses on vocals (Joe Lowrie now handles all drumming duties and was described as Kirsch and Conde as a “cyborg” due to his talent), Noxis is still very much his and Kirsch’s project. Conde originally told me the album was Kirsch’s baby, but the latter states, “It’s really us. It’s really always been us. I’m really happy that it’s only the live release that Ray was not on. It makes me feel really good.”
The pair also share a stringent notion of death metal that prevents overindulgences and acts as a filter by which all things must pass through. It is formed by specific acts that Noxis herald, including Cryptopsy, Cerebral Rot, Demilich, Crematory, Adrema, and Demigod. Equally as important are the groups they don’t want to emulate: Cynic, Beyond Creation, and Origin, or, in other words, overtly technical metal bands. Other rules Noxis abide by fall into a similar category. “There’s never going to be any djent in there. That’s a line you can’t cross. There’s never going to be a breakdown, either, like a real breakdown,” says Conde.
These ideals drape an old-school coat over Violence Inherent in the System, but Noxis also draw from cavernous death metal of the late 2010s. They tap into a thought pattern that acts like Phobophilic and Blood Incantation share; not to reject modern death metal and embrace traditionalism, but to take it down a different path by first working backwards, then forwards. They build their base on old school death metal and evolve from there. It’s a retroactive correction that combines the raw appeal of early Cannibal Corpse with technical musicianship and three decades of hindsight.
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On a tangible level, that concoction presents itself through grooviness. Noxis are simply fun to listen to because they play killer grooves, the blunt and fetid sort that overflow your motor cortex. Conde says, “There’s so much groove, which makes us get away with so much. I think we get away with so much of our flashy stuff because it’s groovy. Like, Atheist cut, turn left, cut, left turn, whereas we might cut left turn, but we’re going back into another head bob.”
Their constant spiraling around grooves allows them to string together many rogue concepts without feeling overbearing. These left-field ideas include bongo drums that sound more like viking war drums played in a cave on “Abstemious, Pious Writ of Life” and a clarinet solo from Caleb Canatheviphth on “Horns Echo over Chorazim.” Canatheviphth records deranged clarinet covers on YouTube of technical death metal, although not even his cover of Decapitated’s “Spheres of Madness” compares to his abrasive solo with Noxis. Yet, he’s been part of the plan since before Noxis was formed. “I’ve always wanted a horns and tuba solo. I thought it’d be so funny,” says Kirsch.
However, Violence Inherent in the System treads a microscopically thin line that its technical leanings further narrow. There’s a time for weird ideas, but they must be doled out with care, else you run into the risk of out-gimmicking yourself. “I don’t want us to be like that, you know? Like, I don’t want us to become a meme,” Kirsch says. Thankfully, you’d never assume Noxis were a meme because these rogue aspects are so well-woven into Violence Inherent in the System. They’re like sleep paralysis demons hovering just outside your peripheral vision. You never know when they’re coming, only when they’ve arrived, and thus, you have no time to anticipate them.
Noxis’ blend of grooves, bonkers features, technicality, and old-school affectations is out-of-step with death metal’s overall curvature in 2024, even among the genre’s more creative acts. “Now, death metal is kind of going in two directions,” says Conde. “Like, are you going more hardcore with it or are you going more brutal? It’s starting to be like that late 90s, early 2000s, Dying Fetus, Eternal Bleeding, Devourment, scene. Or, it’s hardcore.” Neither of those apply to Noxis, and it’s not because they’re riding against what death metal has become. They simply adore death metal and how much potential it has nearly 40 years into its existence. You can hear their excitement when they talk about their favorite bands or their preferences and predispositions. They identify death metal’s trajectory and develop outside of it because they understand it so deeply. And, fortunately, it’s all without losing sight of death metal’s accessibility that rises from head-bobbing, because as Kirsch puts it, “It’d be annoying to be that band where it’s like nothing but musicians coming to see you.”
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Violence Inherent in the System is available via Rotted Life Records.
