Human Infection

When I first happened across this band, it was the tape's art that grabbed me. Freaky mutant clawed foetuses aren't a common sight in black metal art, even if it complements an obviously misanthropic title like "Human Infection". Other than that, there was nothing immediately interesting about the band: 1-man instrumental black metal from Russia, uncreative track titles like "Shadows of Oblivion" and "Voices of Chaos", recorded with a drum compute,r and released on tape in a limited handful of copies. All things considered, you'd probably expect this to be crap, right?

Yeah, so did I.

The riffs here are crunchy, twisted and gnarly in every way that black metal is meant to sound like. Simplistic, hard-hitting and laced with catchy hooks that hold a listener's attention incredibly well, despite the utter lack of vocal delivery. Lux Mystherion, the sole driving force behind this 33-minute long ball of devilry, isn't reinventing any wheels here. But when was the last time you cranked a killer old-school BM record expecting your speakers to excrete raw foaming creativity?

The music here is catchy like Impaled Nazarene, Mayhem or early Samael is catchy. Barbaric, thrashy in places, and garnished with tiny bits of infectious groove. Production quality is... uh, actually pretty decent. The programmed drums overpower the guitars in places, but I wouldn't say too much. The bass isn't drowned out by the other instruments, either. The album upholds a similar tempo throughout each track, but occasionally breaks away into cleaner more melodic passages. "Shadows of Oblivion" also drops a few death metal riffs here-and-there for good measure (the bass I mentioned is most prominent on this track). "Destiny" follows up with a much more death metal-oriented structure than the other songs, but still keeping that grotty black metal filth caked to each chord. Belphegor comes to mind in places, although with considerably less melody.

"Anthem of Ancient Fear" and "Edge of Madness" are probably two of the catchiest highlights on this record. The passages stick with you after listening, and I've found myself playing this unassuming debut on repeat more than twice. Lux has an excellent gift for songwriting, and has a pretty damn good way of showing it. It's obvious he isn't new to the scene, and isn't leaving any time soon either.

If you can snatch a copy of this tape, by all means do so. It's one of those infectious listens that grows on you the more you play it. Fans of melodic or symphonic black metal probably aren't going to get anything out of this, but lovers of blackened death sure as hell will. If you expect you'll be bored shitless from half-an-hour of no vocals, well... give it a shot anyway. You might be proven as wrong as I was.