AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): TYRANT GOATGALDRAKONA — “MARQUIS OF EVIL”

 

In the ten years that have elapsed since the formation of Tyrant Goatgaldrakona, this Hungarian death metal duo have been measured in their release of music, with only one album (2013’s Horns In The Dark) and a pair of EPs to see the cold light of day since 2009. But now there’s a third EP on the horizon, a two-track offering named Marquis of Evil that’s set for an October 25th release on 7″ vinyl by Blood Harvest Records — and we have a full stream of it, in all its monstrous glory, for you today.

As trained medical professionals, we strongly advise you to get your neck loose before listening to the opening song, “Conspiracy With Marquis“. Okay, we’re not really trained medical professionals, but we still know sore-neck-trauma when we feel it, and this track is a merciless neck-wrecker — though it doesn’t begin that way.

 

 

At first, “Conspiracy…” is a bestial assault of thundering drums and writhing, roiling guitar abrasion, which provide a ferocious, warlike backdrop to deep, ugly (and yes, tyrannical) gutturals. It’s an electrifying (and terrorizing) start, but one that’s just softening you up for the serious neck strain to come.

The band shift into a methodically jolting and brutishly heavy sequence at about the 1:10 mark, and they stay with that primitive, crushing assault long enough to take command of your head. They integrate further displays of frenzied, boiling, fretwork savagery into that hammer-fest, along with some freakish soloing, but repeatedly come back to it, determined to drive you as deep into the ground as they can.

With the second track, “The Seventh Throne“, the band reverse course, as compared to “Conspiracy With Marquis“. They immediately turn their attention to ruining the listener’s neck with a mid-paced dose of barbaric pounding, laced with a groaning, slithering bit of dismal, doom-drenched melody — and THEN they jam the pedal to the metal, unleashing a torrent of pummeling drumwork and berserker tremolo riffing. The rising and falling tones of the riff channel a mixture of cruelty, delirium, and desolation.

When the band return to the more measured cadence, the music undergoes a ghoulish transformation, growing increasingly more dismal and putrescent in its atmosphere, though still interspersed with punishing percussive blows, capped by a final brief eruption of mayhem.

 

It’s unfortunate that Tyrant Goatgaldrakona aren’t more prolific, because they’re so good at the ghastly business they’ve chosen, but beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll just have to revel in these two ruinous tracks until the next time the band emerge from the catacombs with something new. On the bright side, these tracks are so addictive that they don’t wear out their welcome. And you can place your orders for them now:

PRE-ORDER:
http://shop.bloodharvest.se/?product=tyrant-goatgaldrakona-marquis-of-evil-7ep
https://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/marquis-of-evil

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/tyrantgoatgaldrakona