The Italian death metal band Ad Nauseam will release their debut album, Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est (Nothing But Emptiness Is Ordered), next week, on March 31. (Pre-order it on Bandcamp.) The band, who prefer to remain mostly anonymous, include guitarist/vocalist Andrea P., guitarist/backing vocalist Matteo G., bassist Matteo B. and drummer Andrea S. Their sound is a blurry wall of noise, dense and dissonant, not unlike Portal, Gorguts or Ulcerate, but the way it blends death metal and doom may also please fans of Incantation. The guitars sound like they’re sliding out of tune, as the riffs cycle and mutate and the drums, which have an almost jazzy crispness at times, erupt into one barrage after another. The bass is a steely rumble, and the vocals are a hoarse shout, not the stagy, affected roar of a more, say, Deicide-indebted frontman. And there’s more going on here than pure metal, anyhow, particularly in the album’s later stretches. On tracks like “The Black Veil of Original Flaw” and epic closer “Superimposing Mere Will and Sheer Need,” elements of modern classical music appear, as piano and violin (also the work of Andrea P.) add even more nerve-jangling atmosphere. Nihil Quam… is an unrelenting album, to be sure, but it’s also exhilarating to hear this kind of density, compositional confidence, and sonic surprise in a genre that frequently falls back on proven strategies.

We’ve got an exclusive track premiere from the album. Stream “The Black Veil of Original Flaw”: