Woah! What good did I do to be rewarded with this record? I am absolutely delighted and thrilled to bits!
NEGLECTED FIELDS from Latvia serve fresh, technical, aggressive Death Metal which makes you listen up, gaping. Even the keyboard – which is usually smiled at or even denied in this genre – is engaged in such an apt manner that it has its legitimacy alright.
The Intro and the second track The Spectator belong together and should be listened to in a row. Same goes with the tracks Triplicity and Khert Neter. Ov Snake, Splenetic and Khert Neter attract some extra attention: You don't meet such constructive aggression, power, fluency and elegance wrapped in artful song structures every day. The vocal performance is so extreme that the vocals could be considered an own instrument – Blackmetal barking with Deathmetal gargle; something along these lines.
Every song on Splenetic bears a special feature: in The Cosm, The Vacuum, The Wave it is a prominent, recurring interim-riff and the piano in the end; in Splenetic the psychedelic beginning catches your attention which mounts up to a simmering, bubbling Deathmetal inferno with headbang qualities – a masterpiece. Ov Snake fills with enthusiasm with its driving force; sometimes the tempo slows down to rise again, taking us on a journey that is never boring. The Spectator shows striking bass play, aggression and a wonderfully constructed, well thought-out, varied framework. Still the song manages to sounds coherent at any time, you never get confused. A great pleasure to listen to this piece!
Generally, the bass deserves some extra mentioning on the new album Splenetic, so does the precise drumming. Both never leave the frame of the whole picture, yet work in their own ways, demanding their own space to develop as instruments with equal rights as guitars and vocals naturally have.
Khert Neter holds a modern, somewhat cold touch – reminds in its manner a little of Lux Occulta's last album The Mother And The Enemy; so does The Spectator at times.

The only drop of bitterness is the relatively short playtime. On the other hand, I rather enjoy 35 fat, striking, ace minutes than 50 uselessly prolonged ones. Strong recommendation!