War metal, a ferocious and hellish variant of black metal, is a reliably satisfying form of sonic aggression. Pioneered by legendary Canadian act and Blasphemy, the micro-genre has flowered into bands like Conqueror, Archgoat, Black Witchery, Revenge and Diocletian. As I indicated when I included Diocletian in my best of 2014 list, the task for making a war metal record worth hearing is to avoid simply aping Fallen Angel of Doom without making distinguishable of your own.
But this is a difficult task, particularly with such a no-frills style like war metal. Actually scratch that, war metal might as well be a negative-frills style: all brutality, all raw hatred and death, no nonsense. As noted in the helpful primer put out by Invisible Oranges: “In the most basic terms, war metal is a blasphemous, violent black/death metal hybrid so extremely fast, raw, and chaotic that it often borders upon grind – “black/grind”, even.”
But Australia’s Abominator has put themselves up to the task, with their latest record, Evil Proclaimed out now on Hell’s Headbangers Records (who else?). Australia has steadily gained a reputation for mind-blowing metal (Ignivomous being a personal favorite of mine), and Abominator, formed in 1994, is certainly part of that. So with that in mind, Evil Proclaimed is a very good, very satisfying blast of demonic fury.
But it’s not quite great. As is typical of many albums in the style, it’s listen-ability as an album is plagued by its lack of variation and a tendency for the songs to bleed together into one big mass of blast-beats and dissonance. Blast-beats and dissonance are wonderful things, and I honor the band for trying to create such a punishing release, but by the fifth track or so, you get the idea.
And I’m not saying they need to create some kind of war metal-smooth jazz fusion or something to mix it up (actually, I wonder how that would sound…hold on, let me write this down). But there are ways to mix things up a little bit with interludes to create dramatic tension or keep the listener guessing. In fact, the new Archgoat is a pretty good example of this.
Still, I wouldn’t dream of robbing the band of credit for songs like “Black Mass Warfare,” “Evil Proclaimed” and “Indomitable Master.” It’s on these songs that the band puts more thought into weaving the riffs together in a way that creates a truly engaging atmosphere. The galloping double bass on “Indomitable Master,” the catchy vocalizations on “Evil Proclaimed” and the background riffing on “Black Mass Warfare” allow these songs to stand out.
Not that there are any bad songs on the album. I mean, with a style so straightforward, if you create a bad song, I’m not sure what hope there is for you as a composer. Any song here would be great on a compilation or a split. And the album is great for any time you want to put on something extreme and to-the-point in its own ferocity, but not much more. Regardless, I hope we don’t have to wait so long for the next album. If Abominator could focus more on creating parts that stand out, they could set themselves on their way to making a classic.
7.5/10
Favorite Songs: “Black Mass Warfare,” “Evil Proclaimed,” “Indomitable Master”
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JckLjbm9Mo8]
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