ALBUM REVIEW: Black Legion – Blasfeme
Bristol’s BLASFEME may only have been active since 2016, but they have garnered a lot of well deserved attention in the last few years within the UK’s black metal underground. Although the band’s debut EP, Path of Despair, and their debut album, 2020’s Iniquity In Salvation, were certainly powerful records in their own right, it wasn’t until 2021’s Fuck Your Starving Planet that more people began to take notice of the stringent and visceral black metal that they were producing. Their latest album, Black Legion, takes the many successes of that short EP and explores them in greater depth, crafting a lean and vitriolic slab of classic black metal with an imaginative and eclectic twist that could very well see the band take the wider European underground by storm.
Purified By The High Flames Of Hell, with its slick, heavy metal-inspired guitar work, is a brilliant way to kick this album off, with punchy melodies vying with chaotic black metal flourishes for the listener’s attention. The vocals, although slightly buried in the mix, perfectly complement the stringent quality of the music with an equally coarse and sinister edge, creating a fierce, focused sound that is rooted firmly within classic black metal without feeling formulaic.
Wolves Of Karpathia, a short sharp shock of caustic hooks, frenetic drums and acerbic vocals, takes the belligerence of the opener and develops it further, with the end result being a fast and feral piece of music that possesses a rabid edge that means that it leaves an impact despite being incredibly brief. The lengthy Čachtice 1611 still embraces blistering tempos and feral musicality, but as it progresses it leaves plenty of room for slower, darker sections with denser, rhythmic guitars, which allows the vocals and inventive drumming to take on a more central role in the overall complexion of the song.
Ritualistic Exsanguination has a sharper sound and a more accessible style which makes it a catchier take on the band’s sound, though it’s nonetheless visceral. With its imaginative leads and forceful vocals, it’s a great example of how even raw and bleak sounding black metal can be incredibly immersive and memorable when the songwriting is approached right. Czernobog reverts to the savage intensity that characterised a track like Wolves Of Karpathia, but carries forward the anthemic hard rock qualities of the preceding track, along with great, spoken word vocals, to provide a distinct twist on a traditional black metal formula, making it far more engrossing and powerful.
Black Legion takes the sound that has been prevalent throughout this album and makes it epic and cinematic, with the cacophonous pace being counterpointed by sharp leads, percussive drums and expansive rhythms, making this just as grandiose as it is caustic. As another lengthier song, there’s lots of space to add subtle flourishes and adventurous ideas, making this a magnificent and wide-ranging climax to an impressive record. The final, instrumental offering, Bound By The Blood Upon Our Swords, completely strips away the extremity that is a hallmark of the rest of this album, instead closing on a gentle, folky effort that acts as a great counterpoint after the unrelenting ferocity of the previous six songs.
For those who listened to darker, sinister sound that was present on Fuck Your Starving Planet and loved the combination of biting hooks, blistering tempos and feral flourishes, then this album will not disappoint, because it’s a great expansion on the sound that is present on that EP. Raw, but not alienatingly so, with lots of excellent riffs and caustic intensity that rarely lets up, this is a modern interpretation of a classic black metal sound that is done extremely well, with an impressive amount of variety between tracks making it incredibly easy to get drawn into this record. Black Legion provides a stunning template of how to create black metal that is simultaneously rabid and punchy, and stands as arguably BLASFEME‘s finest hour so far.
Rating: 9/10
Black Legion is out now via Wulfhere Productions.
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