Rye Reviews: Anaal Nathrakh - Eschaton
Posted: 2006-10-19 11:34pm
Ok, this is a review for anyone that considers themselves into "heavy music."
I got the new Anaal Nathrakh album and it's so fucking awesome I could weep. The general songs are heavier and more intense than any other bands I know of at the moment, and they're so beautifully put together. The lead guitar and the fucked up harmonies are incredibly inspirational. I'm going to play the guitar tomorrow until my fingers bleed to try and get that good.
Tracklist:
1. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes
2. Between Shit And Piss We Are Born
3. Timewave Zero
4. The Destroying Angel,
5. Waiting For The Barbarians
6. The Yellow King,
7. When The Lion Devours Both Dragon And Child
8. The Necrogeddon
9. Regression To The Mean
Okay, so, the review;
1. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes - I asked in testing a while ago what this meant, where it came from, etc, and apparently, it's from Hobbes, and his ideas on humanity without social contract, the war of all against all. This song is a total slaughterfest, (there is no way you can listen to it and not get that everything to do with it is fucking pissed off), the guitar blasts along at grindcore speed ripping power chord triplets from the gusset of God and never relents. There's some interesting obituary-style odd vocals contrasting against the angry englishman's full on scream, that set up an interesting rhythm that swaps between the left and right channels.
While not as utterly wall-destroying as Pandemonic Hyperblast from The Codex Necro, it's certainly not for the timid.
2. Between Shit and Piss We Are Born - Starts out as a severely brutal wall of noise not unlike the last track, then settles into a definitive rhythm that's actually slightly reminiscent of "fixation on the darkness" layered with some emperor or immortal. Then, oh my god, the melodic choral bit, still full on blast beats, and they sound amazing. I never knew you could really use blast beats with melodic parts and make it sound so awesome, Vitriol's vox really excel here, he says something like "between shit and piss we are born, how satisfied you are to return, i hope you drown in shit you insignificant fuck" or something like that, but he says it in a really melodic way that for the life of me I can't mimic. I need some proper vocal coaching.
This is probably my favourite track from the album. Plus with a song title that offensive, such hate-filled bile contrasted with such utterly awesome lead guitar and masterful melodic brutality, it's nothing short of genius.
3. Timewave Zero - opens with some severely evil riffage with no beat behind it. The blast beats come in, and personally I would've preferred some slow drumming. Then the evil riff dies out and we're back to the triplets, they're pretty simple grindcore derived, but then they sweep around with some death/black talent, so it doesn't get boring like most grind does. The melodic parts come in again, this time with an evil riff underneath and the melodic vocals again, but interestingly doubletracked with his scream vox quieter, underneath. Then it goes back to the grindy riff and back to the melodic part again, then there's some crazy Kerry King style whammy soloes and a haunting exit. I think they could've done a bit better with this song, in all honesty. It's still better than every single Metallica song.
4. The Destroying Angel - Starts with S.O.S and then some awkward intentional pauses in the shreds, this song's more industrial, then, I thought, and then a sample comes in proving my suspicions. It returns to the unrelenting blistering speed, then some chuggy goodness before the abrupt stops and industrial metal. Some more cool lead guitar bits, some extremely weird noises. Imagine if you played 2 or 3 ministry tracks at once and electrocuted the bollocks off their singer, that's what this song reminds me of.
5. Waiting for the Barbarians - This song is a pretty clear call back to the atmosphere of old school black metal, with a decent slow start and melancholy triplets, only with decent production. Back come the blasts and it's time to focus on the vocals and guitar to make sense of it all. There's some extremely creepy breakdowns and chuggy headbangy parts and Vitriol's voice is warped in an evil machine god sort of way. I get this mental image of a lawnmowerman style head in the sky looking down on the deletion of the world. This song, in effect, industrialises old school black metal, and it's really cool. The blasts weren't around for long, and they were replaced with much more respectable drumming that in my opinion, fairly straightforward metal drumming, not just pure blast.
6. The Yellow King - No idea what this song is about, but the intro is CLEARLY Napalm Death inspired, it's not super-fast, but the general chords used are so totally ND it's untrue. There's some awesome chuggy headbangy bits with small abrupt pauses, it's like industrial Napalm. There's harmonic melody from the guitars again and it's interesting how they slot it in along with lead guitar work that I wish had appeared more on their earlier albums, Napalm don't do much melody, but if they did, this is what they 'd aim for. There's some samples reinforcing the industrial aspects, and no discernable lyrics, the vocals altogether seem pretty textural and subdued on this track. In the last 30 seconds, it goes slow and melodic and ghostly. Truly superb and unexpected.
7. When the Lion Devours Both Dragon and Child - this song streams from their myspace and is considered by the band to be the nicest song on the album The rhythm is pretty proggy like I've seen with a few bands recently. They'll probably not like the comparison, but slipknot have used interesting staccato rhythms like this in their most recent album, also their most proggy. The vocals on this track change between a rather simple dark grunty voice and some awesome melodic ones effortlessly with his usual scream on the edges of the riffs. Majestic and misanthropic, brutal but with the awesome melodic technique seperating it out. I love slow chords with really well fitting leads over the top and the strangely contrasting blasts in the drums. The melodic parts in this song I'm going to attempt with my own band to see what happens.
8. The Necrogeddon - A few false starts and amusing samples, then into the brutality again. Consistent blasts from here on. Vitriol does some fucked up shit with his voice in this song, totally out of my league. Proper screams to gurgles to king diamond style impossible falsettoes. The melodic parts are eerie and desolate, no vocals, all picked out with harmonised guitars and I suspect subdued strings synths. The composition in the melodic parts strangely conjours up images of vast smooth structures like monoliths or ice shelves.
9. Regression to the mean - mid paced and utterly methodical industrial metal, with a weird synth in the background soaring and falling. This song alone would probably appeal to people that aren't fans of the triplets and super speed prevalent in the rest of the album. It's really chunky and straight forward, instantly accessible to an addict to bands like fear factory like me. This song would probably appeal to Rob Zombie fans, too. It appears to have an atmospheric windy/horror synth in parts too, which actually reminded me of Evil Dead and Quake. This is probably my second favourite song on here.
I give the album 9/10, the band has accomplished what they set out to do, and with amazing style, but I would liked to have seen less brutality and more chuggy headbangy stuff. I know that's not really their style, so I won't hold it against them, this will be one of my favourites for a long time, I suspect. This is definately one of my favourite "fast" albums.
I got the new Anaal Nathrakh album and it's so fucking awesome I could weep. The general songs are heavier and more intense than any other bands I know of at the moment, and they're so beautifully put together. The lead guitar and the fucked up harmonies are incredibly inspirational. I'm going to play the guitar tomorrow until my fingers bleed to try and get that good.
Tracklist:
1. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes
2. Between Shit And Piss We Are Born
3. Timewave Zero
4. The Destroying Angel,
5. Waiting For The Barbarians
6. The Yellow King,
7. When The Lion Devours Both Dragon And Child
8. The Necrogeddon
9. Regression To The Mean
Okay, so, the review;
1. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes - I asked in testing a while ago what this meant, where it came from, etc, and apparently, it's from Hobbes, and his ideas on humanity without social contract, the war of all against all. This song is a total slaughterfest, (there is no way you can listen to it and not get that everything to do with it is fucking pissed off), the guitar blasts along at grindcore speed ripping power chord triplets from the gusset of God and never relents. There's some interesting obituary-style odd vocals contrasting against the angry englishman's full on scream, that set up an interesting rhythm that swaps between the left and right channels.
While not as utterly wall-destroying as Pandemonic Hyperblast from The Codex Necro, it's certainly not for the timid.
2. Between Shit and Piss We Are Born - Starts out as a severely brutal wall of noise not unlike the last track, then settles into a definitive rhythm that's actually slightly reminiscent of "fixation on the darkness" layered with some emperor or immortal. Then, oh my god, the melodic choral bit, still full on blast beats, and they sound amazing. I never knew you could really use blast beats with melodic parts and make it sound so awesome, Vitriol's vox really excel here, he says something like "between shit and piss we are born, how satisfied you are to return, i hope you drown in shit you insignificant fuck" or something like that, but he says it in a really melodic way that for the life of me I can't mimic. I need some proper vocal coaching.
This is probably my favourite track from the album. Plus with a song title that offensive, such hate-filled bile contrasted with such utterly awesome lead guitar and masterful melodic brutality, it's nothing short of genius.
3. Timewave Zero - opens with some severely evil riffage with no beat behind it. The blast beats come in, and personally I would've preferred some slow drumming. Then the evil riff dies out and we're back to the triplets, they're pretty simple grindcore derived, but then they sweep around with some death/black talent, so it doesn't get boring like most grind does. The melodic parts come in again, this time with an evil riff underneath and the melodic vocals again, but interestingly doubletracked with his scream vox quieter, underneath. Then it goes back to the grindy riff and back to the melodic part again, then there's some crazy Kerry King style whammy soloes and a haunting exit. I think they could've done a bit better with this song, in all honesty. It's still better than every single Metallica song.
4. The Destroying Angel - Starts with S.O.S and then some awkward intentional pauses in the shreds, this song's more industrial, then, I thought, and then a sample comes in proving my suspicions. It returns to the unrelenting blistering speed, then some chuggy goodness before the abrupt stops and industrial metal. Some more cool lead guitar bits, some extremely weird noises. Imagine if you played 2 or 3 ministry tracks at once and electrocuted the bollocks off their singer, that's what this song reminds me of.
5. Waiting for the Barbarians - This song is a pretty clear call back to the atmosphere of old school black metal, with a decent slow start and melancholy triplets, only with decent production. Back come the blasts and it's time to focus on the vocals and guitar to make sense of it all. There's some extremely creepy breakdowns and chuggy headbangy parts and Vitriol's voice is warped in an evil machine god sort of way. I get this mental image of a lawnmowerman style head in the sky looking down on the deletion of the world. This song, in effect, industrialises old school black metal, and it's really cool. The blasts weren't around for long, and they were replaced with much more respectable drumming that in my opinion, fairly straightforward metal drumming, not just pure blast.
6. The Yellow King - No idea what this song is about, but the intro is CLEARLY Napalm Death inspired, it's not super-fast, but the general chords used are so totally ND it's untrue. There's some awesome chuggy headbangy bits with small abrupt pauses, it's like industrial Napalm. There's harmonic melody from the guitars again and it's interesting how they slot it in along with lead guitar work that I wish had appeared more on their earlier albums, Napalm don't do much melody, but if they did, this is what they 'd aim for. There's some samples reinforcing the industrial aspects, and no discernable lyrics, the vocals altogether seem pretty textural and subdued on this track. In the last 30 seconds, it goes slow and melodic and ghostly. Truly superb and unexpected.
7. When the Lion Devours Both Dragon and Child - this song streams from their myspace and is considered by the band to be the nicest song on the album The rhythm is pretty proggy like I've seen with a few bands recently. They'll probably not like the comparison, but slipknot have used interesting staccato rhythms like this in their most recent album, also their most proggy. The vocals on this track change between a rather simple dark grunty voice and some awesome melodic ones effortlessly with his usual scream on the edges of the riffs. Majestic and misanthropic, brutal but with the awesome melodic technique seperating it out. I love slow chords with really well fitting leads over the top and the strangely contrasting blasts in the drums. The melodic parts in this song I'm going to attempt with my own band to see what happens.
8. The Necrogeddon - A few false starts and amusing samples, then into the brutality again. Consistent blasts from here on. Vitriol does some fucked up shit with his voice in this song, totally out of my league. Proper screams to gurgles to king diamond style impossible falsettoes. The melodic parts are eerie and desolate, no vocals, all picked out with harmonised guitars and I suspect subdued strings synths. The composition in the melodic parts strangely conjours up images of vast smooth structures like monoliths or ice shelves.
9. Regression to the mean - mid paced and utterly methodical industrial metal, with a weird synth in the background soaring and falling. This song alone would probably appeal to people that aren't fans of the triplets and super speed prevalent in the rest of the album. It's really chunky and straight forward, instantly accessible to an addict to bands like fear factory like me. This song would probably appeal to Rob Zombie fans, too. It appears to have an atmospheric windy/horror synth in parts too, which actually reminded me of Evil Dead and Quake. This is probably my second favourite song on here.
I give the album 9/10, the band has accomplished what they set out to do, and with amazing style, but I would liked to have seen less brutality and more chuggy headbangy stuff. I know that's not really their style, so I won't hold it against them, this will be one of my favourites for a long time, I suspect. This is definately one of my favourite "fast" albums.