It’s been a few years since black metal was my general “go
to” style, but even today when something distinct and amazing comes my way such
as Pandemonium, I succumb to its power and subconsciously hand over my
attention for long detailed listens. This Polish mob formed back in 1989 and
since then have been challenging ears and genres with their brand of
intoxicating black death metal with major doom influence. I’ve had this one for
over a month now and it gets continual play as I continue to itch for its
unique blend of sounds that really defies classifications.
Expect some intense moments of melodic chaos with screaming
metal leads and controlled steady pulses of crunching black death metal riffing
with some doom wailing, and something intrinsically addicting with the
bulldozers of “God Delusion”, “Necro Judas”, and “Everlasting Opposition”. “Everlasting Opposition” has this
really trippy effect in the vocals where they fade in and out of the mix, but
always behind the instruments even when they are present, it sounds like the
voice of a spirit calling forth and you can almost visualize the vocals as this
purple plume of sticky dense smoke swirling and dispersing through a backdrop
of pure blackness. The riffs on this one are deeply rooted in the blood soaked
soil of old school death metal and distinctly so, right down to some of the
shredding guitar slide work (not the pig squeal though).
There’s even some female vocals present on “Stones Are
Eternal”, that remind me of a pagan ritual incantation by a high priestess,
that add some eerie and epic moments to the song that otherwise is yet another
relentless hammer blow of shredding distorted riffing and rhythmic pounding
inspired by the occult and a murderous desire. The rhythms are actually pretty
doomy on this one, although never that slow, they are massive and lingering
with that right tweaking to the tone to make them doom and do have a steady
throbbing feel to them like repeated blunt force impacts to your skull.
Still, with all of the greatness on here I have to bow down
in humility and awe to the female vocals courtesy of Androniki Skoula (Chaostar
and Septic Flesh) as heard on “Stones are Eternal” and the glorious power
climax of the album, the title track “Misanthropy”. “Misanthropy” redefines
epic and dark symphonic metal, although it’s only symphonic in a few places ,
that feeling is all in the way the guitar wailing and screaming melodies from
the darkness behind and the spoken evil voices alongside the continual song of
the priestess towering above it all.
If you’re looking for something strong, well executed,
immaculately brutal, hypnotic and unforgettable, consistently solid all the way
through, and something that you will return to time and time again then pick up
Misanthropy. There’s nothing on here
that doesn’t do something, it doesn’t raise the bar, it bends it until it snaps
in half leaving us all speechless in response. This is already one of my
absolute top picks of 2012, but that’s not too surprising as this horde have
been continually developing and mesmerizing audiences for over two decades
Check them out:
Deathgasm has it in stock, I just checked.
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