From one of the planet’s most isolated metropolitan centers, an unholy tremor has been felt. Perth, Western Australia—a city geographically detached from the historic crucibles of extreme music—has once again asserted its relevance with a singular, savage statement. The city’s premier death metal export, Depravity, has announced the impending arrival of its third full-length album, ‘Bestial Possession.’

Scheduled for a worldwide release on November 21, 2025, through the esteemed international label Transcending Obscurity Records, the album marks the end of a five-year period of public silence since the band’s acclaimed 2020 release, ‘Grand Malevolence.’

This is not merely the announcement of a new record; it is a declaration of intent from a band that has cultivated a world-class sound far from the genre’s traditional epicenters. The aural violence that Depravity has consistently perfected seems not just to endure its isolation, but to draw a unique and formidable strength from it, turning geographic remoteness into a crucible for a pure and undiluted form of extremity.

Depravity: A Lineage of Savagery

While Depravity officially formed in 2016, the band is no assembly of newcomers. It is a convergence of veteran talent, a unit forged from the ashes of the respected Perth act Malignant Monster and fortified by musicians with extensive experience in the Australian underground.

The lineup—comprising vocalist Jamie Kay, guitarists Lynton Cessford and Jarrod Curley, bassist Ainsley Watkins, and drummer Louis Rando—has remained a stable and potent force across their entire discography. This roster represents a formidable pedigree, with members having served time in punishing acts such as Impiety, The Furor, Pathogen, Iniquitous Monolith, ex-The Ritual Aura, and ex-Scourge, among others.

Such stability is a rarity in the often-volatile world of extreme metal and has been instrumental in the band’s focused and rapid evolution. It allows for a deep, almost telepathic musical chemistry, where a shared language of aggression can be refined and made more complex with each release.

This evolutionary path is clearly charted in their recorded output. The band’s initial EPs and their 2018 debut full-length, ‘Evil Upheaval,’ established a foundation of raw, carnivorous death metal that immediately garnered attention. By their 2020 sophomore effort, ‘Grand Malevolence,’ their ambition had grown, incorporating more intricate, technical, and even neo-classical elements into their sonic assault.

This trajectory places Depravity firmly within the lineage of Australian extreme metal, a scene historically defined by its uncompromising nature. Since the emergence of early thrash acts like Mortal Sin and the chaotic death metal of pioneers such as Sadistik Exekution in the 1980s, the continent has cultivated a reputation for producing uniquely ferocious music.

Depravity carries this legacy forward, channeling the barbaric intensity of their forebears while honing it with a modern, global-level precision.

Harbingers of Possession

The first premonitions of the album’s character have arrived in the form of two singles, ‘Rot in the Pit’ and ‘Call to the Fallen.’ Chosen with deliberate intent, these tracks map the formidable breadth of ‘Bestial Possession,’ showcasing two distinct facets of the band’s amalgamated sound. They serve as a calculated statement of purpose, demonstrating that the forthcoming album will offer both primal satisfaction and sophisticated punishment.

‘Rot in the Pit’ is a masterclass in direct, visceral impact. The track is built around a powerful, mid-paced foundation that feels immense and unstoppable. Driven by the commanding percussive force of Louis Rando, the song eschews overt complexity in favor of a crushing, physical groove.

The guitars of Cessford and Curley deliver immense, downtuned riffs that are brutally effective, culminating in what has been aptly described as a “chant-tastic ‘Rot In The Pit’ stomp.” It is a moment engineered for the live environment, a primal hook designed to incite a physical reaction, reaffirming the band’s connection to the old-school foundations of the genre where the power of the riff reigns supreme.

In stark contrast, ‘Call to the Fallen’ reveals the band’s more nuanced and technical capabilities. The track is a dynamic arrangement that balances relentless, high-speed assaults with passages of dark, melodic sensibility. Here, the band’s musicianship is on full display, navigating intricate structural shifts and complex rhythmic patterns with an unnerving precision.

The song demonstrates the “more nuance and colour” promised in the album’s official description, proving that Depravity’s attack is not one-dimensional. It is in this synthesis of machine-gun technicality and atmospheric melody that the band’s true identity emerges—a sound that is as intelligent as it is savage.

‘Bestial Possession’ Themes of Blasphemy

As a complete work, ‘Bestial Possession’ promises a cohesive and harrowing conceptual journey. The album’s title itself suggests a thematic duality: the violent intrusion of a demonic entity and the willing surrender to a primal, animalistic state of being. This exploration of spiritual and corporeal horror is a cornerstone of the death metal aesthetic, which has long used extreme imagery to probe the boundaries of human experience.

The tracklist reinforces this focus, with titles such as ‘Engulfed in Agony,’ ‘Eunuch Maker,’ and ‘Awful Mangulation’ pointing toward a fixation on physical violation and suffering. Meanwhile, a song like ‘Aligned With Satan’ makes the album’s anti-religious or occult-driven narrative explicit, placing it within a rich tradition of blasphemous art.

This thematic framework is given visual form by the renowned Italian artist Paolo Girardi. Girardi’s signature style, which evokes the chaotic and visceral torment of classical oil paintings of hell, has become a seal of quality and serious artistic intent within the extreme metal underground through his work with bands like Cryptopsy.

His involvement is a significant non-verbal cue, signaling that ‘Bestial Possession’ is positioned not as a mere collection of songs, but as a significant and ambitious work of art. These themes of violence, occultism, and transgression are not deployed for shock value alone.

As scholar Michelle Phillipov has argued, such extremity in death metal can function as a site for “pleasure and play,” allowing listeners to vicariously explore forbidden states of being in a way that has little to do with real-world violence. This artistic exploration of the grotesque is a sophisticated, if unsettling, cultural practice, and Depravity appears poised to deliver a masterful entry into its canon.

An Amalgamated Brutality

The true power of Depravity’s music lies in its expert synthesis. The band’s sound is a confident and mature amalgamation, one that is “rooted in the old school sound but not necessarily sounding old school.” This approach allows them to draw from the entire 40-year history of death metal as a creative palette.

Their compositions carry echoes of the foundational architects of the genre—the dark, churning malevolence of Morbid Angel, the groundbreaking technicality of Suffocation, and the unwavering blasphemy of Deicide. Yet, this reverence for the past is fused with the relentless velocity and surgical precision of modern titans like Hate Eternal and Hour of Penance.

The album is produced by the band themselves and is available for pre-order in multiple formats, including a limited edition CD that comes in a gatefold sleeve with a metallic effect, a 12-page booklet, and a hand-numbered card.

At present, no tour dates have been announced in support of the release. The full tracklist for ‘Bestial Possession’ is as follows: ‘Engulfed in Agony,’ ‘Eunuch Maker,’ ‘Call to the Fallen,’ ‘Awful Mangulation,’ ‘Rot in the Pit,’ ‘Aligned With Satan,’ ‘Blinding Oblivion,’ ‘Legacy,’ and ‘Catastrophic Contagion.’

A Reign Reaffirmed

After five years of concentrated work in their isolated crucible, Depravity is set to unleash its most refined and potent creation. ‘Bestial Possession’ is not just a continuation of their work but a powerful culmination of it.

The album stands as a manifestation of the power of stability, dedication, and a singular artistic vision cultivated far from the diluting influence of fleeting trends. It is a definitive statement that exudes sheer class and confidence, reaffirms the band’s position at the vanguard of modern death metal, and proves, once again, that the most sophisticated forms of savagery can arise from the world’s most remote corners.

As Depravity demonstrates a mastery of death metal’s historical vocabulary, from old-school aggression to modern technicality, where do you see the genre’s evolutionary path heading next? Does the future lie in this kind of expert synthesis, or in the creation of entirely new, transgressive sounds?