In the five and a half decades since metal began to find its footing as an established genre, metal bands have gone to increasingly great lengths to answer the question: how does one make the most intense music possible?
One such band is the Quad Cities death metal outfit Phantom Threat, who released their latest EP, Phantasmagoria, on June 5.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Phantasmagoria” is “a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined.” Having had to search up the definition of “Phantasmagoria” before I listened to the EP, naturally, I was left wondering how the sounds would reflect the title that represented them.
The album opened with a sonic scene straight out of a horror movie on the song “Chalice,” complete with church bells, a choir singing a haunting tune and looming feedback from the guitars. Once the band kicks in, it’s an onslaught of riffs and blast beats. No moments of calm were to follow for the duration of the record.
For the next four tracks and 15 minutes, the band throws you around like a lone sock in a dryer. “Tenebrous Wretch” enters with a groove that resembles a giant lumbering across the lands. “The Debutante” concludes with tasty riffage and guitar harmonies. Finally, “A Leper’s Spit” comes in low ‘n’ slow with bludgeoning force.
All the while, the EP is littered with unpredictably rapid section changes and tempo shifts. Just when you think you’ve settled in, a new, even nastier riff comes in to bully you once again.
The production was the cherry on top of the songwriting; the gain-loaded guitars, rigid and precise drums, and rigorous, Converge-esque vocals reminded me of the great death metal records of the 1990s.
Even with a runtime just north of 15 minutes, the record didn’t feel incomplete in any sense. It was just long enough and dense enough to make me feel like I got a full fix, but short enough that it never drags, even for a moment.
Perhaps the aspect of this EP that stands out the most to me is how diverse the sound is; if I were to list the amount of influences I observed in this record, I could write a whole other article.
Which brings us back to the question that metal bands have grappled with since the genre’s inception, that pursuit of the most intense music possible. For bands like Slayer and Exodus, pure speed was the name of the game, and they pushed their tempos beyond anything heard before. For bands like Pantera and Lamb of God, it was all about the groove; they put their chips on stylistic depth and punchiness. Bands like Meshuggah opted to drop-tune their guitars to pitches previously unknown to mankind, while employing polyrhythms so complex that latching onto their grooves could feel like trying to solve an equation.
To be able to harness all of those vehicles for intensity and meld them into one concise, digestible piece of media is an achievement. To be able to make it brutally intense and replayable is the ultimate goal, and that is what Phantom Threat has done here. The EP is truly a phantasmagoria; a constantly shifting and complex succession of sounds, and it is a thrill to experience.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s July 2026 issue.
