“Reared Up in Spectral Predation” is the debut offering from Universally Estranged, a cybernetic death metal entity transmitting from the molten swamp of Houston, Texas. Completed largely during the time of COVID-19, the project stands as an aural totem to our weak, fleshy forms stumbling through a reality that feels endlessly hostile. Across its svelte ten tracks, the album manifests largely as chunky, bone-rattling death metal, replete with blasts, intricate riffing that never delves into mindless technicality, and subhuman vocalizations of terrible things unknown. The gleaming jewels embedded in the brow of this shoggothian monstrosity, however, are its more ethereal, contemplative moments; latticing synth movements that stand in startling contrast to the bestial cacophony otherwise on display. No mere filler interludes, these passages instead act as cornerstones to the project’s dynamism, dreaming respites from the waking hellscapes the songs spend most of their runtimes evoking. At once learned in the ways of old and unafraid to wade through the waters of experimentation, “Reared Up in Spectral Predation” finds Universally Estranged bringing a singular eldritch sound to the burgeoning annals of cosmic death metal.