Review Summary: Godless Arrogance is a collection of 8 back-to-back songs, each with its own morbidity and a three man studio project labelling the parts.
Sammath’s latest effort Godless Arrogance defies the lines of traditional extreme metal, primarily because this band is the godchild of metal veteran Jan Kruitwagen and most importantly because, as the latter said, “20 years to finally get the album we wanted.” 4 full-lengths old, this black metal trio delivered something that could only have come straight from the stomach of hate. The arrangements in this album carry some insane riffs from Kruitwagen, and for all blast beat moochers, we have Koos Bos with some technical, fast and really extreme drum-work.
Godless Arrogance is a collection of 8 back-to-back songs, each with its own morbidity and a three man studio project labelling the parts. ‘Shot in Mass’ is what it starts with, brutal, unrelentless and extreme. ‘Fear Upon Them’ is Sammath’s most explosive song on this record; with a hauntful melody, the devastation just oozes from this song. ‘Godless’ is like a fitting conclusion to the momentum the previous track creates. It’s like a colossal stupor. ‘Thrive in Arrogance’ is Sammath’s answer to the modern extreme metal scene. The flowing dextrous nature of the music’s composition is what makes this song so expressive, while ‘This World Must Burn (Hammer of Supremacy)’ is fuelled by Kruitwagen’s growls. Koos Bos is brilliant with his work behind the drums on this one.
‘Through Filth and the Remains of Man’ creates a very doom-sey atmosphere a while into the song which builds in like a tumour. It’s almost as if Sammath wanted the experience to get more extreme the closer we get to the end of the album. ‘Death (Hunt Them Down)’ is a technical masterpiece with some hateful riff-work from the front-man. There is also this brilliant introduction to the album’s outro (read Kruitwagen’s mastery over music). While ‘Nineteen Corpses Hang in the Mist’ is like a Necromancer’s tale the artwork of the album is symbolic of a post-war wasteland, reminiscent of WWII maybe? It isn’t the traditional black-metal art of visceral anti-Christ imagery but the something dark that develops in humans that participate in war.
Signed to Folter Records, Godless Arrogance establishes itself as a masterpiece of extreme black metal, reminiscent of the Strijd era. What the band fails to mention is how far it is willing to go to create its next effort. Although it’s sure to bring with itself legions of unleashed fury from the pits of hate, that maybe only Sammath can lend its mastery over.
