''Axis Mundi'' is the fourth studio album by

technical death metal Technical death metal (also referred to as tech-death) is a musical subgenre of death metal that began and developed in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting. Techni ...

band

Decrepit Birth Decrepit Birth is an American death metal band from Santa Cruz, California. They have released two studio albums through Unique Leader Records and two through Nuclear Blast, and a demo independently. All of their studio albums feature artwork ...

, released on July 21, 2017, via

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label mov ...

(in North America) and Agonia (in Europe and the rest of the world). It is the band's first studio album to feature drummer Sam Paulicelli and bassist Sean Martinez, as well as the first album since 2010's ''

Polarity Polarity may refer to: Science *Electrical polarity, direction of electrical current *Polarity (mutual inductance), the relationship between components such as transformer windings * Polarity (projective geometry), in mathematics, a duality of ord ...

''.

Recording and release

''Axis Mundi'' was recorded during 2015–2016 at various studios: drums part were recorded by Ryan Forsyth at Private Ear Studios in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, Canada; bass and guitars part were recorded at guitarist Matt Sotelo and bassist Sean Martinez's own studios respectively. Stefano Morabito handled the mixing and mastering duties at 16th Cellar Studios in

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, Italy. The cover artwork was once again designed by artist

Dan Seagrave Daniel Seagrave (born 1970) is a British artist, who created many record covers for death metal bands especially in the early 1990s. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He grew up in Ravenshead, near Nottingham. Seagrave's works are typically ...

. On September 3, 2015, drummer Sam Paulicelli posted a studio footage on

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about his drum tracking for Decrepit Birth's brand new album. On September 22, 2015, the band confirmed on their

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page that vocalist Bill Robinson was in the studio tracking vocal part. The album was officially completed on October 17, 2016. On May 18, 2017, the band announced that the album would be released on July 21, 2017, along with the track listing, cover artwork and an accompanying 360° lyric video for the song "Epigenetic Triplicty". The second song "Hieroglyphic" was available for streaming on YouTube on June 15, 2017.

Background

In the band's official biography, guitarist and main songwriter Matt Sotelo commented on ''Axis Mundi'':

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes. Decrepit Birth * Bill Robinson −

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

* Matt Sotelo −

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

s, bass (track 11),

MIDI sequencing A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound Cont ...

* Sam Paulicelli −

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, bass (track 10) * Sean Martinez − bass Additional musicians * Paul McGuire −

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

(track 2) Production * Ryan Forsyth − drum

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

* Stefano Morabito −

re-amp Re-amping is a process often used in multitrack recording in which a recorded signal is routed back out of the editing environment and run through external processing using effects units and then into a guitar amplifier and a guitar speaker cabin ...

ing, mixing, mastering *

−

cover art Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game (box art), music album (album art), ...

* Michał "P. (Cursed Art)" Kaczkowski −

layout Layout may refer to: * Page layout, the arrangement of visual elements on a page ** Comprehensive layout (comp), a proposed page layout presented by a designer to their client * Layout (computing), the process of calculating the position of obje ...

* Tyler Asselin –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

References

2017 albums Decrepit Birth albums Nuclear Blast albums {{2010s-metal-album-stub