I must admit that some five years ago, I was starting to get bored to death (!) with the Death
Metal scene in general. Every band seemed to want to be more brutal and more technical or more "slam" than the other with only a few exceptions.
Most
Old School bands from the golden era of Death
Metal were and are still active, but none of their recent releases seem to grasp the magic of their former glory and subsequently fail(ed) to achieve anything significant. The past seemed to be too heavy a burden for most to bear and ultimately Death
Metal looked as if it was again going down the drain. Then came the revival that some call New Wave of
Old School Death
Metal. Thanks to a few labels like
Razorback Records that somehow initiated this movement, “new” bands were and still are rediscovering what made Death
Metal such a unique music and while somehow regressing towards a more primitive sound they’d give us music where the word “Death” in “Death
Metal” was no longer vain. Although I must say that nowadays some of these “
Old School” revivalists are also starting to plague the genre with too numerous releases, I am glad for the “change”.
Witchrist is probably one of the bands out there that took the “change” to its most drastic and linear expression. After a much remarked compilation of their two first demos, one released, the second one unreleased, there were high hopes that the New Zealand-based band would release a fantastic debut full-length. For those anxious to put their hands onto
Beheaded Ouroboros, I could sum up this review with only a few words: there is no fucking way that you're going to be disappointed.
The opener is a long 8 minute piece of Death
Metal ridden with that Black
Metal hatred that will pound your ears with down to mid tempo excruciation.
Once you start playing the CD, there is no turning back till you reach the very end of it.
Dark, occult and excessively heavy, all the tracks will take you down further down the path to eternal damnation because
Witchrist's music is not only music, it is somehow a deep and dark mystical experience that goes beyond a simple arrangement of musical notes.
With a sound quite typical of this part of the world, expect plodding riffs a la
Ignivomous or
Portal, music that keeps the legacy of occult Death
Metal masters
Incantation very much alive. If you’re familiar with the two aforementioned bands, let’s only say that
Beheaded Ouroboros keeps the brutality of Death Transmutation but adds to it more down tempo parts that will weigh on your neck and would remind you of
Archgoat's heaviness; it also has the particular sound of
Portal's Seepia or Outré lest the Lovecraftian vibe and heretical madness of the Aussies.
Although it's usually hard for me to pick up a song among others where quality is equally high throughout a record, I must say I literally melted when listening to "The
Cauldron". The riffing here is just fantastic and will induce an almost trance-like state. This is the kind of songs that literally should put most bands on infernal orbit. Just like “
Immortal Rites” did it for
Morbid Angel or more recently "Teeth into
Red" for
Dead Congregation, this one song is an instant classic and will transform you from a "regular" listener into an eternal devout.
The contamination has now begun and
Witchrist will most likely expand their black plague onto anyone that is into real Death
Metal. With such a debut, the NZ band will conquer the (under-)world and there is no doubt that every subsequent release will be highly anticipated. In the meantime, you have
Beheaded Ouroboros to satisfy your hunger which, without any doubt, will be satiated.
Thanks for the chronicle!
I would just fuck my girl on the pachydermic and unhealthy side of the album!
I was thinking at this during the listening! Certainly because I found it very good! ;)
Вы должны войти в систему, чтобы добавить комментарий