ALBUM REVIEW: Pagan Rhythms (re-release) – SpiritWorld
When you are strongly endorsed by metal legends like Gary Holt and Max Cavalera, alongside BBC Radio 1 Rock Show host Daniel P. Carter, you must be doing something right. SPIRITWORLD’s brand of menacing metallic hardcore has an exceptionally demonic edge to it, a cacophony of mayhem which entails a plethora of anarchic SLAYER-esque riffs forcefully bound with unrelenting and violent hardcore breakdowns. Inspired by the godlessness of the American frontier, where the flaming, apocalyptic skies meet the smouldering sands of sin. The long, lonesome highways stretch into the shadows and the undisturbed deserts contain many things of an otherworldly nature. Pagan Rhythms offers up a nefarious, ominous and chaotic glimpse into what band leader Stu Folsom calls the soundtrack to his “Death Western”.
The most notable aspect of the album is its strong narrative structure, utilising Western and Native American themes to place the narrative in a set place and time. Interspersed throughout Pagan Rhythms are audio snippets that give you a sense of the religious turmoil in the depths of the desert, where vice and virtue are continually at odds in order to survive. The self-indulgent chaos is a positive strength to Pagan Rhythms, harnessing the dual power of metal and hardcore to deliver a record that legitimately summon demons into your room. Folsom’s rustic and raw vision is refreshing, fiendish and feverish – one that captures the imagination. With his background in punk and outlaw country, the sinister stories told on Pagan Rhythms come from a world that Folsom was immersed in. This gives them a spine-tinglingly believable edge that will stay with you long after the record has finished.
The music itself showcases the sensibilities of this new, expanded wave of hardcore, looking more towards its more theatrical extreme metal counterparts to birth a more bestial, bloodthirsty and barbaric sound. The SLAYER influences that permeate the record are what give this album it’s old school thrashy feel – alongside the hardcore grooves it is very reminiscent of the crossover efforts of Texas’ own POWER TRIP. From the ominous, preached opening of the title track, to the disturbing fading distortion underneath a gospel singer on the album closer Ritual Human Sacrifice, the album is packed with riffs that are spat at you one after another as from the venomous fangs of a possessed king cobra.
Despite the constant hammering of riffs and deafening snare shots, there are points which hark back to Folsom’s background. The Demon Storm‘s outro of a jangly, country guitar that gets progressively detuned as the outro fades into Armageddon Honkytonk & Saloon adds an unnerving, strange spookiness halfway through the album. Each song feels like it has a unique purpose to serve the narrative, SPIRITWORLD’s incredible skill to blend each song into the next without breaking the immersion factor of the record is remarkable, especially as this is their debut full-length.
Looking further into the narrative, it is hard not to think that Pagan Rhythms is a damning inditement of Christianity in general as well as on the American frontier. The brutal and unforgiving place that it was, it is easy to see how anyone that didn’t fit slightly would be outcast in the most horrible ways. The band have definitely staked their claim as the voice for the outcasts, outlaws and rouges. While it may be a novelty that the band are to be considered the world’s first ‘Death Western’ band, it will definitely find its way into the arms of the downtrodden. The hell scape that SPIRITWORLD has spawned from has been translated into what could be considered the sonic embodiment of Baphomet, the goat headed representation of Satan. It is more than fair to say that this album is here to bring about both an outlaw revolution and the apocalypse by any means necessary.
Rating: 8/10
Pagan Rhythms (re-release) is set for release on November 5th via Century Media Records.
Follow SPIRITWORLD on Bandcamp.