Genre: Extreme Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release Date: September 16th 2022
Line Up:
Nergal – Lead Vocals/Guitar
Orion – Bass/Backing Vocals
Inferno – Drums
Seth – Guitar/Backing Vocals
Tracklist:
1 – Post God Nirvana
2 – Malaria Vvlgata
3 – The Deathless Sun
4 – Ov My Herculean Exile
5 – Neo-Spartacvs
6 – Disinheritance
7 – Off To War
8 – Once Upon A Pale Horse
9 – Thy Becoming Eternal
10 – Versvs Christvs
Is it 31 years since Behemoth’s main man Nergal decided that the extreme metal of the day wasn’t extreme enough? He set the record straight with four demo’s in two years before the first full debut album. Since then, the band has become legendary plus they’ve been cited by the Polish authorities for Blasphemy! Good work! So much for free speech.
Nergal has stated with this new release he didn’t have any time constraints like previous albums so he refined all the songs to the best they can be, which took 12 months.
Opener ‘Post God Nirvana’ takes you on a disturbing ride with Nergal’s barbed sermon set to ominous drums and the odd crunchy riff before ‘Malaria Vvlgata’ blasts forth on a brutal thrashing beast which ends abruptly for the even more metal/choral blast of ‘The Deathless Sun’. The latest single ‘Ov My Herculean Exile’ gets doomier before we get some real metal and dare, I say some groove on the fantastic ‘Neo-Spartacvs’. ‘Disinheritance’ takes its time to get going but when it does it rattles along and has a searing lead break then it’s ‘Off To War’ which has some wonderful orchestration courtesy of Jan Stoklosa and his orchestra plus a bruising riff and blasphemy – some melody! ‘Once Upon A Pale Horse’ is some dark metal that leads to the rabid and pure evil of ‘Thy Becoming Eternal’ which has some major groove and more of that orchestration. The final track ‘Versvs Christvs’ starts with some ominous major piano chords underneath Nergal’s malevolent whisper which send shivers up your spine then later it bursts to open into a massive black metal extravaganza with blast beats and raging guitars.
My knowledge of the black/death metal genre is minimal – I know what I like, and I like this. It’s bold and brazen and smacks of a band who don’t have any limits or constraints – they just create pure art. Sadly, recent reviews have not been too favorable, but I say ignore those and give this a go because the more you listen to it the more you will discover, plus, it sounds awesome thanks to the legendary Bob Ludwig who mastered the record.
Score: 8/10
Reviewed by: Smudge
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