ALBUM REVIEW: A New Kind Of Horror – Anaal Nathrakh

ANAAL NATHRAKH was originally created for one purpose according to the bands bio; to be the soundtrack for Armageddon, the sonic essence of evil, hatred and violence. In the 19 years since that manifesto was launched, they have remained true to those words across their first nine albums, and now they are ready to unleash album number ten, A New Kind Of Horror, another ten tracks of vicious, uncompromising noise that sees the duo of Mick Kennedy and Dave Hunt looking for new ways of disturbing listeners.

It all begins with The Road To…, a slow building ominous intro that gathers pace like an oncoming storm of noise. The sharp piercing background noise son giving way to a crushing riff, before Obscene as Cancer fires into existence and normal ANAAL NATHRAKH service is resumed: a huge grinding blackened noise and a strangely melodic chorus. The Reek Of Fear throws in more electronic features and again with the furious pace of the music and Dave Hunt’s distressed vocals. So far, so intense as expected. Similarly, Forward! has some huge riffs, electronic elements, high pitched screams and gurgled death metal growls. It may be a more straightforward type of track than your usual ANAAL NATHRAKH affair, but their nihilistic interpretation on all things gives it that extra something that a lot of bands just don’t have.

New Bethlehem / Mass Death Futures could be quite a conventional song, but you don’t get that with this duo, and the delivery is every bit as intense as the rhetoric. As the album marches towards the end, the tracks just seem to get more and more antagonistic and violent as they progress. Mother of Satan and The Horrid Strife featuring a largely black metal sound and build up the tension toward the closing track. Are We Fit For Glory Yet (The War To End Nothing) is a fitting close to such an intense album, as it tries something a little different and more sombre to reflect the overall theme of war that permeates through the album.

ANAAL NATHRAKH always come up with something unnerving and challenging and that trend very much continues with A New Kind of Horrow but in a different way. Whereas the songs are more unnerving and unsettling, this time they have thrown everything at you in a sonic assault that makes their previous work seem almost calming. They have taken lyrical inspiration from a lot of images and poetry from the time of the First World War for this album, and the horror and violent nature of the topic shows through in spades. The addition of the more solemn closer is an interesting path for the band to take and a fitting one for this release. As forceful as you would expect, with a couple of interesting twist and turns along the way.

Rating: 8/10

A New Kind Of Horror is out now via Metal Blade Records.

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