Anaal Nathrakh - The Codex Necro
Mordgrimm Records - 2001
By Philip Whitehouse
This is how black metal is meant to be. Not too long back, I was praising Akercocke as the most extreme black metal act I'd come across, and then I stumbled across this record. The cover depicts some poor sod with a plastic bag over his head, his tied hands clutching desperately at his throat as he suffocates. As images go, it's possibly the most representative of Anaal Nathrakh's sound as could be found.
This is the loudest, vilest, most intense black metal record I've ever heard. Not for this duo of Brits the wind-blasted iciness of their Northen cousins - Anaal Nathrakh prefer to roast their listeners alive with fumes from some infernal aural blast furnace. Using a drum machine simply because no human drummer could be found that could keep up with the beats, and with Irrumator providing all instruments and samples while V.I.T.R.I.O.L. handles all the inhuman vocals, The Codex Necro is a lesson in extremity taught by people who have taken it beyond an art form and made it into a way of life.
From the opening seconds of 'The Supreme Necrotic Audnance' to the last seconds of closer 'The Codex Necro', Anaal Nathrakh perform the sonic equivalnet of soaking the listener in acid and laughing while they burn. When they slow down for a minute as in 'When Humanity Is Cancer', it's by no means a respite - it's a reliving of the nightmare where the unseen stalker is closing in and you're running through treacle. Then, when they unleash hell, as in every last second of the ridiculously extreme 'Pandemonic Hyperblast', it's like a frenzied assault on your senses - the guitars sear like flamethrowers, and the drums pummel like a pneumatic drill to the skull.
If you thrive on extremity in your music, and if you're prepared to make every single record in your black metal collection suddenly seem light and unsatisfying, you need a copy of The Codex Necro. Just don't blame me when your ears start bleeding and you feel the unshakeable compulsion to murder your family.
Now where did I put my hatchet...
10/10
Mordgrimm Records - 2001
By Philip Whitehouse
This is how black metal is meant to be. Not too long back, I was praising Akercocke as the most extreme black metal act I'd come across, and then I stumbled across this record. The cover depicts some poor sod with a plastic bag over his head, his tied hands clutching desperately at his throat as he suffocates. As images go, it's possibly the most representative of Anaal Nathrakh's sound as could be found.
This is the loudest, vilest, most intense black metal record I've ever heard. Not for this duo of Brits the wind-blasted iciness of their Northen cousins - Anaal Nathrakh prefer to roast their listeners alive with fumes from some infernal aural blast furnace. Using a drum machine simply because no human drummer could be found that could keep up with the beats, and with Irrumator providing all instruments and samples while V.I.T.R.I.O.L. handles all the inhuman vocals, The Codex Necro is a lesson in extremity taught by people who have taken it beyond an art form and made it into a way of life.
From the opening seconds of 'The Supreme Necrotic Audnance' to the last seconds of closer 'The Codex Necro', Anaal Nathrakh perform the sonic equivalnet of soaking the listener in acid and laughing while they burn. When they slow down for a minute as in 'When Humanity Is Cancer', it's by no means a respite - it's a reliving of the nightmare where the unseen stalker is closing in and you're running through treacle. Then, when they unleash hell, as in every last second of the ridiculously extreme 'Pandemonic Hyperblast', it's like a frenzied assault on your senses - the guitars sear like flamethrowers, and the drums pummel like a pneumatic drill to the skull.
If you thrive on extremity in your music, and if you're prepared to make every single record in your black metal collection suddenly seem light and unsatisfying, you need a copy of The Codex Necro. Just don't blame me when your ears start bleeding and you feel the unshakeable compulsion to murder your family.
Now where did I put my hatchet...
10/10
