ALBUM REVIEW: Profound Evil Presence – Power From Hell
Brazil’s POWER FROM HELL bring the musical style and tropes that are firmly rooted in old school metal, and where many bands fail spectacularly at emulating this approach, this band pulls it off incredibly well. Their dense blackened thrash has served them well over the last eighteen years and six full lengths, cementing a solid and respectable legacy and following within the South American,and indeed international, scene. Their latest full length, Profound Evil Presence sees POWER FROM HELL begin to incorporate different elements into their tried and tested sound, making for perhaps their most impressive outing to date.
Nightmare starts Profound Evil Presence off incredibly strong with a short, bleak instrumental piece centred around haunting acoustic guitars and some well placed drumming and sonorous vocals, something that sets the tone for the rest of the album to come. It gives way to When Night Falls, a suitably visceral and rabid affair that is a million miles from the track that came before it, with feral vocals, thick guitar hooks with subtle ambience, and far more frenzied drumming. It’s a macabre piece of music with a raw sound, and gets the album proper rolling in style. False Puritan Philosophies, with its solid lead melodies and razor sharp vocal deliveries, is a very tight and impressive track, with a solid rhythm section that helps to create a very cohesive, strong overall sound.
Lust … Sacrilege & Blood proves to be a far more speed driven affair, with a bleak and brooding sound that makes excellent use of some ethereal, cleaner guitar tones in among the denser, crunchier tones. It’s got plenty of great musicianship and just the right amount of melancholic atmosphere to help raise the bar significantly. Nocturnal Desire up the ante with regards to aggression and vitriol, bursting out of the speakers carving a blistering, caustic path through the middle of the album, making for a brief, yet brilliant, blast of classic blackened thrash. Unholy Dimension is a very melodic, intricate song that draws the listener right in from the very first note, with glorious, lead guitar harmonies colliding with heady, forceful rhythms and acidic roars, all of which make this song stand out quite a bit from the pack. It’s a really good song which provides a nice change of musical pace, adding a bit of depth to the albums already fairly eclectic sound.
Lucy’s Curse is a very solid black metal track with a strong MGŁA feel that manages to inject the band’s own flavour to proceedings, and although it doesn’t leave much of a mark on the overall record, it nonetheless provides a great nod to one of their influences, without outright imitating them. Diabolical Witchcraft, a relatively lengthy and sprawling offering that carries on the ethereal tones of the previous song, but adds bleak, hazy leads into the mix as well, making this a murky, yet visceral, slab of black metal with a palpable atmosphere. The vocals and even the mid paced, sepulchral approach of the music is great, and is a vast improvement on the foundations laid down on Lucy’s Curse. Into The Sabbath is, as the songs title suggests, a suitably dark, macabre and esoteric affair with some truly sharp, jarring guitar hooks and bellicose vocals matching the extremity of the subject matter of this track with aplomb. This is a ferocious and caustic slab of eerie blackened thrash that will not disappoint.
Elizabeth Needs Blood, taking its inspiration from Elizabeth Bathory, is yet another solid and interesting song that documents the woman and her crimes. A slow tempo affair, this is an unerringly bleak and morose track with a solid rhythmic approach that allows the vocals to carry the song throughout. The vocals come into their own, possessing enough emotive weight to bring this subject matter to life, and back to equally vile and vicious tone of the music, proving to be a great climactic offering that sets the listener up for the final track perfectly. Demons Of The Night, beginning with a thick, bestial groan, heralds the albums exclamation point, with tight and expert great passages, steady, pounding percussion and hellish howls making for a dependable send off for the record. Atmosphere and aggression blend together with ease, making this song in equal parts beguiling and feral, ultimately leaving the listener eager to hear more as the final notes finally die away.
Profound Evil Presence is not your traditional, run of the mill blackened thrash record. Rather, POWER FROM HELL have created an album with the core sound of the genre and peppered it liberally with a heady, atmospheric flourish that makes the music all the more compelling and memorable, bringing in influences beyond those the band would normally be drawing from. It’s still got all of the hallmarks of a great blackened thrash record, but is far more an average record of the genre. Although a few tracks a certainly forgettable, the vast majority of the record is memorable and endures well after the first listen, and proves to be one of the more catchy offerings to come out of the genre in the last few years.
Rating: 8/10
Profound Evil Presence is out now via High Roller Records.
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