ALBUM REVIEW: Flesh Torn – Spirit Pierced – Nigredo
Featuring members of Hellenic black metal legends RAVENCULT and the excellent EMBRACE OF THORNS, NIGREDO definitely has a lofty pedigree within their ranks. Naturally, the music the band are putting out has been equally excellent to date. Coupling intense and bestial black metal with a slight but noticeable degree of musical progression, their sound is firmly rooted in the classic black metal sound, but with a very modern and accessible edge. With their debut full length record, Flesh Torn – Spirit Pierced, finally seeing the light of day nearly three years after their debut EP, the band looks poised to leave their mark on a scene that is already renowned for producing some of the best black metal in the world.
Ten Repellent Antiforces doesn’t pull any punches, and sets a razor sharp, breakneck pace that rarely relents throughout the entire album. With violent, melody-tinged riffs, sludgy, tar-like bass lines and machine gun precise drumming providing a great musical base, the vocals shred through the mix and provide a shrill and acidic counterpoint to the power and density of the music. It’s a solid and unrelenting declaration of intent that does a great job of showcasing what the band are about; intense speed, unerring ferocity and dark atmosphere.
Necrolatry is another slab of absolutely ferocious music from NIGREDO. With speed-driven, discordant riffs and thunderous, authoritative drumming, it’s such an incredibly forceful, aggressive song, and the acerbic vocal delivery only adds to its overall viciousness. Choronzon Possession takes the barbaric edge of the track that preceded it, and liberally peppers it with darkly progressive flourishes, with jarring chords thrown into the mix to add to the aural assault on offer. It moves at a blistering pace, and has a bleak, venomous feel that makes the song seem all the more fierce. It’s hard to fault the catchiness of this particular offering and impressive musicianship it contains, and it raises the bar musically to significantly greater heights.
Mental Glimpses at Cosmic Horrors slowly builds to a crescendo of tight, cacophonous guitar hooks and equally frenetic drumming. The music, which is in equal parts bleak and foreboding, perfectly captures the feel of the demented, Lovecraft inspired lyrics, with the vocals in particular ranging from dense shrieks through to tortured howls, which complement the dissonant melodies and sudden shifts in the pace and tone of the guitars. There’s a great amount of musical variety here, and it’s extremely engrossing. Saturnian Death Cult is a song that is epic in the literal sense of the word; with vast, monolithic guitar lines grabbing the listeners attention immediately, this song feels much larger, without losing any of the aggression and primal intensity that has characterised this album up until this point. It does opt to utilise some more mid-paced guitar and drum work, which helps break up the monotony of the fast and furious pace that has made up the majority of this record, and makes this one stand out in the listeners mind. Sons of Worthlessness takes a more ethereal and jarring approach towards the guitars, and when coupled with the dexterous, frenetic tone of the drums, it creates a deeply eerie and foreboding atmosphere. It’s a track with a distinct, chaotic edge that is hard to fault, and an overall harshness that make it all the more heavy and intense.
Towards the Monolith, the album’s penultimate track, is a lean and aggressive piece of ferocious black metal. With tight, vicious guitar licks blending with darker and more dissonant ones, and some of the most accomplished drumming on the whole album, it’s a track that immediately sinks its claws into you, cementing itself into the listeners memory and marking one of the albums creative and musical high points. It’s incredibly ferocious, and helps leads seamlessly into the albums final track, Raging Tides of Time. This last song is a very powerful display of musicianship, with an underlying grandiosity that gives it a truly massive sound. It has some diverse drumming and guitar work, sliding from deep, sonerous passages to much sharper and visceral ones that are unflinchingly dark and rooted in thrash metal riffing, peppered with some solid, melodious black metal leads for good measure. It’s a great climactic track that allows this album to come to an end on one of it’s more impressive moments.
This is a really impressive debut from a band that have, between its two members, a wealth of talent and imagination. This album lays down a very solid foundation on which to build their sound, and contains some brilliant performances that show plenty of promise and potential, even if there are some points that feel slightly more cautious musically. Nonetheless, this is one of the most impressive debut records in recent memory, it will be interesting to see just how NIGREDO manage to top this album.
Rating: 8/10
Flesh Torn – Spirit Pierced is out now via Transcending Obscurity Records.
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