ALBUM REVIEW: The Suns Of Perdition Chapter III: The Astral Drain – Panzerfaust
The Canadian masters of miserable, experimental black metal PANZERFAUST have reared their heads to release the third and final entry in their The Suns Of Perdition trilogy. Titled III: The Astral Drain, anyone who remembers the earlier entries will surely be foaming at the mouth in anticipation of this release, but will it live up to the quality of the past?
The album opens with Death-Drive Projections, an overwhelmingly spooky intro that crashes headlong into a set of muscular power chords and shrieking dissonance. This soon calms down into a fairly restrained segment of snare rolls and howling vocals. This is not your usual war-cry of metallic, blasting ugliness, but is instead a different shade of nihilistic darkness, one which doesn’t exactly drag across its ten-minute runtime, instead becoming a rare experience of easing-in to the matter at hand rather than being immediately battered about the head and neck with it.
When Hunter Thompson said of fear that “It should always be kept in front of you, like something that may have to be killed”, he was most likely describing a feeling similar to that which The Fear (Interlude) gives off – a choking, visceral murk delivered in outrageous form, a feeling which carries on into B22: The Hive And The Hole, a massive and hulking monolith of strong bass notes and driving rhythm. As we saw on predecessor The Suns Of Perdition Chapter II: Render Unto Eden, we know that PANZERFAUST are great proponents of the super dramatic use of the ride bell and we see it on full display here. Goliath’s vocals really live up to their namesake too, flitting between raspy yells and deep, guttural roaring that will strike terror into the heart of even the most seasoned fan of extremity.
The Pain (Interlude) is a whorl of pissing rain, distant screeching and sound effects that sound like the great rusted hull of an icebreaker being torn to shreds in some hell-pit of a third world breaker’s yard. Bonfire Of The Insanities is PANZERFAUST exercising the peak of restraint. It is a lengthy build, growing evermore dense, cloying and threatening, while simultaneously drawing inexorably towards the first proper glimpse of those soul-shatteringly heavy and overwhelmingly aggressive passages that were littered throughout the second chapter of the triptych. The fact that on this final entry there is so much more build-up to them almost makes the eventual reveal hit harder, as here it feels uncannily like connecting sharply with the steel bumpers of a freight train with a wide-open throttle.
The Fury (Interlude) provides a brief interlude of murky dissonance and harsh, unidentifiable noise before The Far Bank At The River Styx opens with an almost bright intro before lurching headlong into a welcome burst of dizzying speed, playing host to pointedly melodic riffs protruding from sonorous, muscular rhythm work. This track is about as close to a commercially viable lead single as PANZERFAUST are likely to ever stray, but the result of this makes for a refreshingly memorable, undeniable banger.
Despite the great deal of drama to be found in the almost tribalistic drumming making up the bulk of Enantiodromia (Interlude), it is presumably present just to give some small amount of respite before Tabula Rasa hoves into view. It begins with that newfound restraint that PANZERFAUST have seemingly mastered, allowing dismal, nihilistic atmosphere to seep out from the abominable, coiling bulk of the track, where it must be stated that all four members seem to be on top form. The speed of the track gradually builds, allowing it to become increasingly more fleshed out and murderous towards its close and leaving the listener basking in a cathartic glow long after it has faded.
When viewing The Suns Of Perdition Chapter III: The Astral Drain as a whole, what we find is a project that has grown enormously since its previous release. The second chapter of the triptych was an excellent but much more straightforward affair, rooted in the traditional hallmarks of the genre, whereas the growth that is present on this third and final chapter is palpable. PANZERFAUST have seemingly taken their established formula and established a policy of withdrawal and restraint, leading to a work that is not only meditative and supremely cathartic, but also enormously charismatic. This album is living proof that less can often mean more and should certainly be held highly not just in PANZERFAUST’s back catalogue, but across black metal as a whole.
Rating: 9/10
The Suns Of Perdition Chapter III: The Astral Drain is out now via Eisenwald.
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