Review Summary: Haunted battles rage on for eternity.
Ireland has been a hot bed for extreme metal for many years now. Bands like Primordial and Cruachan were known for mixing black metal with over-the-top folk melodies, and in Primordial’s case, epicness to the highest degree. In case you didn’t know, it can get even more deadly than that, especially the putrid symphonies of this band, Coscradh.
Nahanagan Stadial is their debut LP and it doesn’t get any nastier than this folks.
Their sound is a cavernous and diabolical mashup of black metal and death metal with some subtle war metal influences thrown in for good measure. The riffage is absolutely thunderous and disorienting. Think the dissonance of a band like Deathspell Omega combined with the absolute chaos of a band like Portal. Many of these riffs are completely dizzying to the point of exhaustion. The nonstop blasts are like a hail of machine gunfire coming from enemy territory. It’s a complete mind*** in every way imaginable. Juicy basslines will pound you into the dust, leaving you battered, bloody and just barely alive.
The dissonance is a key factor to creating such a hectic atmosphere, and while it is a huge component, I wouldn’t consider the album to be a dissodeath album at all. It acts more like another instrument to bring all the feelings of war and destruction to the surface. Bands like Ulcerate and the aforementioned Deathspell use those pinch harmonics and disorientation to throw the listener into a mental frenzy whereas here it’s used as another way to emphasize the ass pounding that you’re receiving during each second.
Vocally, this couldn’t have been put together any better. They, too, act as another instrument of torture. Fading shrieks, gutturals from another dimension and howls sounding as if a brutal murder has just taken place really help to convey the feeling of war. The blizzard of blasts, riffs and insane vocals will leave the listener’s head spinning in pure awe. With all the chaos going on at all times, you’d think that the album would be a rough listen, but it flows just as well as any other modern day extreme metal masterpiece.
There is just too much black/death metal being released every year that it’s truly impossible to keep track of every single one. Sometimes, a classic will slip right through the cracks, and then BOOM, they hit you right in the face.
Nahanagan Stadial is one of those albums. From the minute you hit play, you need to be prepared for the barrage of musical bullets that are going to pierce your heart. Every single riff, blast and fill is like a bomb going off in your speakers, leaving you battered, broken, yet still coming back for more and more. These 5 tracks are like a well-told story from a war fought ages ago, but still haunt your dreams every night when you close your eyes.
