Ushering a New Era of Agony

Straight from the off set it is easy to hear the old school influence in everything from Karhmul’s vocal performance to the ice cold yet razer sharp guitar tone which slashes throughout the album’s 44 minute runtime.

A slower and more deliberate approach to song writing is in full force on the record and this can be heard especially on tracks such as ‘My Succubus’ where the pulse pounding and relentless riffage and drumming slows down to deliver a song with vibes of mid-era Marduk before the record returns to its aggressive blasting with the catchy and thrashy as Hell ‘Plaguewielder’ with a sound not too far away from the likes of Witchery or Darkthrone’s latter output, letting some of Kadavr’s fast fretting shine through.

The use of bass guitar on the record is prominent and features many sections of specifically crafted independent bass lines riding over guitar riffs and cascading with their own twisted melodies and these parts work well in the slower songs, as they get their time to bleed into the mix without drowning out the guitars or disrupting the flow and rhythm.

‘With Hate I Despise’ is what I believe to be the standout track from the entire record. Straight away we hear Karhmul’s powerful blackened growl tear its way through some headbanging old school black metal guitar riffs as the double kicks blast away in full force before the dark tremolo melodies take centre stage, even showcasing a haunting yet brief acoustic arpeggio section which feels just as welcome.

Production wise it definitely has the feel of the old school early second wave ‘Necro’ sound, following in the wake of the aforementioned Darkthrone and the likes of Xasthur, Burzum and Mutiilation, though this album pre-dates any of the Abandoned By Light full length records and released at a time when Karhmul’s main output was the DSBM demo tapes, so such production style is expected, and the pair make the best use out of the sound to create a unique and catchy album in a heavily oversaturated genre that shows simply why they should be revered as one of the United Kingdom’s most prolific black metal acts of recent years.

[Originally written as part of a retrospective review for https://pitofplagues.wordpress.com/]