Anaal Nathrakh - When Fire Rains Down From The Sky, Mankind Will Reap As It Has Sown
2003 - Mordgrimm Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the official Anaal Nathrakh web site.
Immortal are split, Emperor are no more, the last we heard from Mayhem was a fairly lacklustre live release, and the black metal world is currently waiting with bated breath for Dissection's comeback - but what in the name of the horned one is going to keep us going until then - assuming, that is, that we haven't gotten tired of the old masters letting us down and the new upstarts copying their templates to the letter?
Well, Anaal Nathrakh seem to have matters firmly in their gnarled grasp, as they have demonstrated with the release of this, their second opus of oppressive, claustrophobic and downright malevolent black metal. All the promise and sheer hate-filled energy of their initial full-length, The Codex Necro, has been refined and revitalised for this release, with a clearer but still suffocating production and an increased sense of balancing those cataclysmic blast sections with slower, more nightmarish passages.
'Cataclysmic Nihilism' does exactly as the name suggests it would, blazing out of the speakers with the sort of force and velocity normally experienced only by people who've had a disagreement with an Apache Gunship-mounted Gatling cannon and lost, while the appearances of BM legend Attila Csihar (currently serving time in Aborym, here providing all vocals for the brutalising 'Atavism) and Seth Teitan 131 (providing suitably eerie, discordant and sinister necro solos on 'How The Angels Fly In...' and 'Genesis Of The Antichrist') serve to remind us how this Birmingham based duo have taken the blueprint of classic, necro black metal and stuck a rocket up it's arse.
The spectre of old Mayhem still looms large, of course, but enough of Anaal Nathrakh's own touch remians to ensure this isn't your typical slavish exercise in BM copyism, but rather a startling document of the state of BM in the 21st century. Anaal Nathrakh are still unrivalled in creating masterpieces of misanthropy, and long may it continue.
9.5/10
2003 - Mordgrimm Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the official Anaal Nathrakh web site.
Immortal are split, Emperor are no more, the last we heard from Mayhem was a fairly lacklustre live release, and the black metal world is currently waiting with bated breath for Dissection's comeback - but what in the name of the horned one is going to keep us going until then - assuming, that is, that we haven't gotten tired of the old masters letting us down and the new upstarts copying their templates to the letter?
Well, Anaal Nathrakh seem to have matters firmly in their gnarled grasp, as they have demonstrated with the release of this, their second opus of oppressive, claustrophobic and downright malevolent black metal. All the promise and sheer hate-filled energy of their initial full-length, The Codex Necro, has been refined and revitalised for this release, with a clearer but still suffocating production and an increased sense of balancing those cataclysmic blast sections with slower, more nightmarish passages.
'Cataclysmic Nihilism' does exactly as the name suggests it would, blazing out of the speakers with the sort of force and velocity normally experienced only by people who've had a disagreement with an Apache Gunship-mounted Gatling cannon and lost, while the appearances of BM legend Attila Csihar (currently serving time in Aborym, here providing all vocals for the brutalising 'Atavism) and Seth Teitan 131 (providing suitably eerie, discordant and sinister necro solos on 'How The Angels Fly In...' and 'Genesis Of The Antichrist') serve to remind us how this Birmingham based duo have taken the blueprint of classic, necro black metal and stuck a rocket up it's arse.
The spectre of old Mayhem still looms large, of course, but enough of Anaal Nathrakh's own touch remians to ensure this isn't your typical slavish exercise in BM copyism, but rather a startling document of the state of BM in the 21st century. Anaal Nathrakh are still unrivalled in creating masterpieces of misanthropy, and long may it continue.
9.5/10
