Floridian funeral doom band Worm released their newest album, “Foreverglade,” Oct. 22 through 20 Buck Spin. This band that is quickly making waves around the metal underground turned out one of the best metal records of the year, “Foreverglade,” and can go toe-to-toe with any release in music this year. 

If “Foreverglade” reaps the benefits of any word, it would be desolation. The album opens with a slow and ominous hellscape that makes the spine tingle and the drums rattle the listener’s bones. Meticulously paced songwriting is overlaid with haunting vocals from vocalist Fantomslaughter. Only halfway through the intro, the song takes a shift into murky chugging guitars that pave the way for some of the best headbanging throughout the entire album. 

Artist Brad Moore’s artwork paints a grimey face to “Foreverglade,” a face that encapsulates Florida’s nature through extreme metal. 

“Murk Above the Dark Moor” is where the album hints at the diversity of songwriting on display. The use of bells alongside grim guitar riffs play into the greatest aspects of the funeral doom and death doom subgenre: the feeling of being delivered to death’s doorstep. 

“Empire of the Necromancers” feels like the perfect ode to early death metal bands that came out of Florida, like Death and Morbid Angel. The revitalization of old-school death metal is a well-known occurrence in today’s scene, but it’s the tracks like “Empire of the Necromancers” that make this phenomenon exciting and noteworthy. 

Most of the album paints a dismal atmosphere, and then there are tracks like “Subaqueous Funeral” that are shrouded in mystery. Eerie synth work, masterful leads and solos and dreary vocals at this point in the tracklist cement “Foreverglade” as a damn special project. 

Closing track “Centuries of Ooze” is the foreboding acceptance of the 45-minute journey that is “Foreverglade.” The conclusion offers a methodical finale that doesn’t disappoint. “Centuries of Ooze” fades into the same darkness underneath the Florida waters Worm rose from. 

As soon as “Foreverglade” ends, it’s difficult not to listen to the album all the way through again. Worm has conjured up a masterpiece within the terrifying realms of Florida that won’t be forgotten for a very long time.