Country: Greece
Genre: Black/death metal
Format: Digital, protape (limited to 100 copies)
Label: Fistbang Records (Greece)
Release date: January 19, 2021
Stephen King once compared writing to music thus: “It’s not the key you play it in… it’s the soul you sing it with.” Blues or metal, that principle works here.
In one review, Bestial Entity was likened to Bathory, Hellhammer, Beherit, and Impaled Nazarene. Granted their earliest songs were raw, simplistic and not fully developed, there was an unarticulated quality that resonated with listeners. It was not merely the way the riffs were performed, but the sonic realms constructed around them through the incorporation of samples, effects, and creative concepts conceived in the studio, or a combination of all of these.
The ambiance, the atmosphere, the landscape, the soundscape… however you choose to define it, something was crafted during a time when the guidelines were still largely undefined, when bands freed themselves from commercial constraints, something otherworldly that took you to a place where conventional rules didn’t apply. The bands that managed to accomplish this usually extended their influence across years and eventually decades.
On “Treason of the Dead” Bestial Entity seeks new portals to unexplored realms utilizing only the resources at their disposal: coarse and husky vocals, rough and crude guitars, scratchy and stridulous bass, forthright and unreserved percussion. During the writing and recording phases, gritty tones and murky themes are crafted into a distinctive musical concept.
In the context of comparisons, “Treason of the Dead” can be likened to Pink Floyd tracks such as “One of These Days” due to its entirely collaborative nature, wherein the band endeavors to construct a preternatural environment reinterpreting extreme metal’s conventional aspects. This becomes clear when the vocals, recorded with an ample amount of reverb, merge with the unrefined guitars and blast beats in the opening track. The resulting atmosphere is one of a thick fog enveloping a cemetery.
This surreal ambiance arises from within the songs themselves, rather than merely serving as an additional layer. The guitars and bass appear to coalesce into one instrument, taking on the character of a dreadful entity residing in that graveyard. In fact, the combination of instruments and vocals, when listened to for an extended period, begins to evoke a sense of the occultic, the ethereal and the inhuman if you listen long enough.
As a release that recalls the origins of extreme metal while progressing into its future in its own way, “Treason of the Dead” is highly recommended listening. –Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. Lactating the Overlord's Semen
2. Defyling the Placenta of Holiness
3. Breed the Impure
4. Treason of the Dead
No comments:
Post a Comment