It is almost a decade since SHADOW OF INTENT released their debut album. Despite remaining wholly independent throughout that time, founding members Chris Wiseman and Ben Duerr have risen to the very top of the deathcore tree, with only heavyweights like LORNA SHORE and WHITECHAPEL nominally above them. Living, blastbeat-loving proof that having the patronage of a big label can be optional, SHADOW OF INTENT have made albums of such overwhelming quality over the years that their current, lofty status raises no questions and zero cynicism. If you’re a fan of dystopian sci-fi-themed symphonic deathcore, you will have pre-ordered “Imperium Delirium” months ago. There will be other significant contenders for the title, but even before the first blizzard of blastbeats erupts, this has “deathcore benchmark” scrawled all over it.

And it does not disappoint. There was so much to applaud on the last SHADOW OF INTENT album (2022’s “Elegy”) that tinkering with a winning formula now seems unnecessary. The sharp, progressive edge that has increasingly become part of the band’s identity is more than apparent during the most extravagant songs, and melodic death metal hooks rise up from the brutality on numerous occasions, whether played on guitars or keyboards. Nothing particularly drastic has happened, and yet SHADOW OF INTENT sound more intense and dynamic than ever before. In terms of heaviness, this is their most destructive record yet, but also their most sophisticated. It’s almost as if they know exactly what they’re doing. Deathcore cliches are few and far between, and even when Wiseman unleashes a particularly thuggish breakdown, it punches its way through a refined fog of electronics, quasi-orchestral textures and fractious, fractured noise. Cranked up to a suitably life-threatening level, “Imperium Delirium” sounds like the intergalactic end of all things.

The songs themselves are uniformly great and clearly pieced together in the most meticulous way possible. SHADOW OF INTENT straddle the divide between technical perfection and songwriting soul, and songs like “Infinity of Horrors” and “The Facets of Propaganda” delight in that in-built contrast, with majestic, maximalist arrangements that would be cinematic if they weren’t so goddamn loud. But the biggest thrills come when SHADOW OF INTENT go for the jugular. “Feeding the Meatgrinder” is a murderous abomination with a guest vocal from George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher and ravenous grooves from the CATTLE DECAPITATION school of unsavory punishment. “Beholding the Sickness of Civilization” is a downtempo deathcore gem, with scything, melo-death detours and dazzling flashes of old-school spite. “Flying the Flag” weaves esoteric instrumentation into a lethal blaze of bruising tech-death and windswept, blackened grandeur; and the closing title track is a joyously over-the-top and expensive-sounding seven-minute display of audacity and verve that explains perfectly why SHADOW OF INTENT are so revered.

In reality, this is far beyond deathcore. “Imperium Delirium” is what happens when great bands do it themselves, get everything right, obliterate the competition, and then march on to what we can only presume will be worldwide glory. Does it get much better than this? No, it does not. Strap yourselves in.