Manipura Imperial Deathevokovil: Scriptures of Reversed Puraana Dharmurder

When your band has a name like Genocide Shrines, listeners are entitled to expect full blown blackest-of-black and most-deathly-of-death blackened death metal apocalyptic torture imaginable. These guys from Colombo, Sri Lanka, do not disappoint with their debut album "Manipura Imperial Deathevokovil: Scriptures of Reversed Puraana Dharmurder" - should that not have been "... Deathevoke-evil ..."? ... oh fuck it doesn't matter as long as the music is the real deal! - which features the most punishing manic blast-beat percussion, the most grinding subterranean bass lines and above all the most fearsomely Satanic vocals on the wrong side of Hell (that is, its interiors). If the music isn't the most horrific experience alive, the deep black atmosphere surrounding it and floating through your head like an ectoplasmic demon cloud entity should fill you with terror. From start to finish, this powerful and dense dark work pummels you relentlessly, no matter how fast or how slow it goes, how loud or soft it is, or how hard those slabs of guitar riff noise and crazed drumbeats slam into you.

There isn't much to distinguish one song from the next apart from very brief pauses between tracks and the whole album actually works better being heard as one long onslaught of crushing music. The album's sound is very clean and all instruments can be heard clearly, revealing an astonishing array of rhythms, some of them quite distinctive (as on "Aerialdishamanic Bonethrone Omega: Aryaputhra Ascension"), riffs and melodies that channel the band's raw power and fury at insane speeds. The music flows very well, in a surprisingly ordered way considering how fast and manic it all is, and well-placed field recordings of ritual drumming, the cries and moans of sacrificial victims, and radio or film announcements drive home a message of how oppressed and continuously screwed the poor and the most vulnerable are in a police state where brutality, torture and death are the policy of the day.

As the album progresses, it starts to settle down a little (or maybe I'm getting more used to having my head banged!), becoming more death metal in its steady-state motorcycle rhythms and relaxed singing - meaning that when the musicians go all-out bat-shit crazy on the blastbeats, they sound even more deranged than they did when the music was continuously fast. Alas the songs get shorter as well but by this point listeners probably aren't able to take very much more punishment.

Listeners will come away with an impression of sheer blackened death metal savagery leavened slightly by found sound recordings of chanting, folk drumming and lives lived in poverty, enslavement and exploitation. You may well appreciate that for all the torture and BM / DM brutality you had to suffer in 40 minutes, what Genocide Shrines delivers pales next to the reality of life in poor countries in thrall to brutal dictatorships cynically aided and abetted by rich Western political and banking elites for their own selfish benefit.