AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: FATHER BEFOULED — “IMMACULATE PAIN”

Any year that witnesses a new release from Father Befouled is a year doomed to experience new terrors, as if all the other terrors of human existence weren’t sufficiently severe. In the context of their jaw-dropping last album, 2022’s Crowned in Veneficum (for which we were privileged to host two premieres), we wrote:

Father Befouled revel in sounds of unholy terror in this new album. They display frightening mastery in their ability to combine visceral rhythmic power with music and vocals that radiate unearthly eeriness, blood-congealing horror, and ravaging madness — and the songs’ macabre melodic hooks get stuck in the head too.

That was then, this is now, and now we have a new Father Befouled EP to blot out light on the horizon. Its perfectly descriptive title is Immaculate Pain, and Everlasting Spew Records will inflict it upon us on Friday the 13th of September. Once again, we have a premiere, presented with a lyric video, to help usher in this malignant new beast.

The music below is the EP’s opening track and title song. Few bands can hold a candle to Father Befouled in the departments of desolation and destruction, and their new music strengthens that conviction.

“Immaculate Pain” is desolate in multiple ways, but they make the desolation exhilarating. The riffing whirs like a blood-encrusted drill, dismal and dangerous, while the drums pop like gunshots and rattle like explosions of automatic weaponry. The abrasive tremolo’d chords also seem to whine and moan in agony, ushering in the cruelty of monstrous, cavernous gutturals uttering blasphemies.

Misery also pours out of a weirdly wailing and supernaturally swirling guitar solo, and the guitars also drag and claw, yielding no prospect of hope. A further guitar solo underscores the song’s atmosphere of pain made into pleasure.

Throughout the track, the drumming bursts open in electrifying fills, the bass heaves from subterranean recesses, and the band pick their moments to jolt listeners with tire-iron brutishness.

The video makes a terrifying impact too, in both the words and the imagery — and there’s no mistaking the message about the perversity of fanatical faith.

FATHER BEFOULED is:
Justin Stubbs – Guitar and Vocals
Derrik Goulding – Guitar
Rhys Spencer – Bass
Chris McDonald – Drums

Immaculate Pain was mixed by Derrik Goulding and mastered by none other than Dan Swanö at the famed Unisound studio. It includes three brand new songs and a cover of “Pain Divine” by Morbid Angel.

Everlasting Spew will release the new EP on MCD, cassette tape, and digital formats, and they’re planning the release of a vinyl edition in the winter of this year. All the editions feature the striking cover art created by Justin Stubb that you’ve seen at the top of this article (“Salvation 14.5”).

Everlasting Spew recommends Immaculate Pain for fans of: Incantation, Dead Congregation, Cruciamentum, Immolation.

PRE-ORDER:
[MAILORDER] https://bit.ly/4c5bIBz
[BANDCAMP] https://bit.ly/3WCQC99

FOLLOW FATHER BEFOULED:
https://www.facebook/com/fatherbefouled