Here at our putrid site we’re currently in the midst of rolling out our list of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal songs, but we’re also now beginning to assemble candidates for a 2018 list… and the song you’re about to hear vaulted onto that candidate list immediately. It succeeds on many levels, but the primal power of the song’s rhythmic drive and the catchiness of its supremely menacing melodies are among its notable achievements.
The song is “The Day of the Lord” and it comes from Poisoned Atonement, the ravaging new album by Italy’s Demonomancy, which will be released by the esteemed Invictus Productions on February 23rd.
Demonomancy aren’t newcomers — their first demo emerged in 2010 — and this new album is convincing proof that they’ve used nearly a decade of effort to good effect, honing their chops as both songwriters and performers to produce what is clearly their best, their most stylistically varied, and their most distinctive work to date.
“The Day of the Lord” is a prime example of these advances. It’s an amalgam of death and black metal that’s variably paced but immense in its sound and impact at all times — so immense that it seems at first like a rumbling tank attack coming right over the trench where you’re cowering, the huge bass tone resembling the grinding of gears and the drum flurries coming like high-caliber gunfire. And then the song surges into a ravaging scourge of rapidly writhing riff-work, plundering blast-beats, and thundering double-bass.
There is ominous threat and revealed chaos in the music, its barbarity enhanced by a vocal array of gargantuan roars, fiery yells, and gravel-throated barks (the vocal rhythms whip the head just as the bass-and-drum rhythms shake the spine).
But the song’s rhythmic compulsiveness isn’t the sole source of its infectious appeal. The track’s melodic components are also integral, ranging from sensations of grim, pestilential morbidity to soaring cascades that merit the term “majestic”, and including fleeting tendrils of sound and a flickering reverberating solo that give the music an alien aura that’s both feverish and authentically hostile.
Look for Poisoned Atonement from Invictus on February 23. You can pre-order via the Bandcamp link below (digital and CD), and below you can also listen to a previously released track called “Fiery Herald Unbound (The Victorious Predator)” in addition to our own premiere.
Bandcamp:
http://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/poisoned-atonement-2
Demonomancy:
https://www.facebook.com/officialdemonomancy
https://www.demonomancy.bandcamp.com
Invictus Productions:
https://invictusproductions.net
https://www.facebook.com/InvictusProductions