Review Summary: CAUTION: Bestial Warlust will not hesitate to brutally murder you and subsequently violate your corpse.
Hailing from the infernal depths of Australia, fiendish war metal heroes Bestial Warlust recklessly summoned up war in musical form with the all-out assault that is
Blood & Valour. Despite going mostly unrecognized by the black metal scene at large, due mostly to lack of accessibility (if you think Gorgoroth and Darkthrone are inaccessible, don’t even bother with this), these insane Aussies did what they did exceptionally well: conjure violent images of an all-out Satanic war on God and all his good children. Compared to most war metal, especially the stuff coming out today, this is about as relevant as it gets.
As soon as the first track starts, you know what you’re in for. Distant distortion and whammied-out guitar lines lead into destructive blastbeats and whirling power chord riffing, right away taking absolutely no prisoners in its onslaught against all things good and wholesome. Most of the other songs follow suit; a primitive, barbaric assault is what you’ll get here, and rarely before or after
Blood & Valour’s release has such an idea been put into musical form so competently.
But
Blood & Valour isn’t totally merciless; the clean guitar introduction to “Prelude: Descention Hells Blood” gives the listener a glimpse of the melancholy and uncertainty that it seems even devoted soldiers of Hell feel in the uncertainty of war, precluding the chaos and destruction that follow thereafter. The ripping solos and elaborately structured riffs in “Within the Storm” show that Bestial Warlust isn’t without a sense for melody like listening to most of
Blood & Valour would leave you to believe, but is also shows that they just don’t give a fu
ck about it most of the time!
If no bullsh
it, poseur crushing cult black metal is what you’re looking for, look no further; this is your holy grail. War metal really doesn’t get much better than this, and the fact that
Blood & Valour was made by a bunch of kangaroo-riding ruffians from down under somehow makes it all the more genuine.
