Terra Ruina

This is my first encounter with Ghamorean, so of course I looked them up upon receiving this promo. Apparently they started out as a death/black outfit, but then I also read somewhere that it was typical Swedish black metal in the vein of Marduk. The former might be true but the latter couldn’t have been more off base. With two albums in the rearview mirror it’s clear that this threesome has created a sound unlike what we’re used to hear in black metal, and in some ways do carry the same aesthetics as progressive and technical death metal, and that is truly unorthodox.

Opening track Towards pandemonium starts off in a semi-dissonant manner that instantly gets me thinking of the French black metal scene, with acts like Aosoth and Arkhon Infaustus in particular coming to mind. There’s something particularly violent about Ghamorean, and despite not blasting like crazy and oozing hatred (like for instance Antaeus), there’s still something in the atmosphere that bears the same violent mannerisms. The guitar work is fairly technical, and as mentioned before brings some of the more modern progressive death metal bands to mind, like for instance Ulcerate. Now this doesn’t sound anything like Ulcerate, but the awkward and semi-discordant melodies, along with tempo changes, are still somewhat reminiscent of the lot. Add to that the fact that Terra ruina also carry traits of industrialism, which actually gets me thinking of Plutonium, and you’ve got yourself the recipe for Ghamorean’s third album.

One of my favourite tracks here is undoubtedly Underneath grey heavens. The drumming’s extremely prolific with the tempo constantly going back and forth between abrupt halts and militaristic industry assaults, the melody the guitars bring forth is dissonant and unnerving, yet complementing the industrial asset of the drums, and with a chorus that spawns an eerie choir the schizoid recipe is perfected. There are tons of other little quirks hidden beneath the vivid discordance, but I’ll leave it up to you to discover it for yourself. The instrumental, and might I add utterly industrial, bit Flagrum works as a perfect interlude leading into the violent nature of In man, a plague (the track that bears the heaviest death metal reference to be made on the album, and with a rare but extremely spooky keyboard line).

I’d say that sums up Terra ruina quite nicely, albeit not fairly since I’m constantly discovering new depths within the material, and it’s a rich resource for surprise. The vocal effort of Andreas is magnificent as he gnarls, shrieks and screams in all pitches and manners to perfectly capture the progressive essence of the music. This album comes highly recommended if you’re not afraid of something a bit out of the ordinary, and also if you’re looking for that next big thing for you to discover before all your friends do. Violent, quirky, chaotic, experimental, unorthodox and above all potent and powerful black metal with a twist.

Originally written for My Last Chapter