Review Summary: A fading light.
Hour of Penance are a band conceived from the ravishing blaze of hell and nursed to their current (somewhat) intimidating loom in the swampy heats of a thousand burning churches (or so they would have you
believe). If this finds you a bit too sharp with
edge that’s because it all befits the somewhat waning message of this band-since 1999 they’ve been pedaling that they are not exactly fond of religion in the form of big, crushing soundwaves that had/sort-of have the force of a world-rending sonic boom. Massive emphasis on “sort-of” as of this point.
The issue that plagues the absolute essence of Hour of Penance is their repetition of sound/concepts that will forever make them a slave to their best works (i.e,
The Vile Conception and
Paradogma) since every release thus forth becomes submersed in a cloud of disengagement. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh-there are for sure moments where the cataclysm of ferocious snarls and sick guitar sweeps do still retain some of the sheer nuclear explosiveness of yore (“Devotion To Tyranny” intro
does still satisfy the primal urge to be blast-beated into the outer realms), and on the whole I would be hard pressed to say the thick and gnarled wall-of-sound that the band has honed is no longer present, but it is certainly served forth on a dulled palette. It’s hard to fault them, on some level-they’ve crafted their own iteration of spiteful, god-loathing technically proficient death metal ala Hate Eternal style but with a bit more shredz, but it is a bit disheartening to see many aged extreme metal bands craft their best material in many years (i.e, Aborted, fellow Italian brethren Fleshgod Apocalypse) whilst Hour of Penance limply trot through hell on a decaying horse.
So what is the answer for our fellow Italian riff-sweepers’n’blast-beaters??? Should they incorporate acoustic segways? Maybe a triple-disc concept album? A saxophone? Nay, this would be a grave insult to the tried-and-true dogma of death metal the band has followed since its inception, but surely it would not be harmful to allow creative flourishes in
some sense of the word. “Conjuration Sworn” off of
The Vile Conception is quite possibly my personal favorite track of theirs, and it showcases how staccato gallops can cleanly mesh with beautiful -slightly- atonal sweeps, how blasting rhythms can change on the turn of a dime without being overly indulgent on time signature changes. Sure, the heaviness and most of the intensity of such tracks does still reign supreme
Devotion, but the creative fires that once stoked the flames of these hell-dwellers have begun to fade. Perhaps penance has been paid.
