PANZERFAUST – THE SUNS OF PERDITION – CHAPTER IV: TO SHADOW ZION

(Andy Synn advises you to make room in your year end lists for the new Panzerfaust album, out now)

There were a lot of really good records released last week, including the highly-anticipated new Opeth album (which – while perhaps a little overhyped – is less a “return to form” and more a band finding a new form which combines aspects of both their pre- and post- Heritage years), the brain-manglingly brutal new one from Defeated Sanity (which we should be covering soon), and even a cool new EP by the name of Welcome to the New Dark Ages, Part 2 (which, obviously, I may be a little biased towards…).

But, as a long-time Panzerfaust fan – one who, occasionally, feels like he was the only one who really liked the doomier, gloomier sound of Chapter III: The Astral Drain – there was no way I wasn’t going to share my thoughts on the fourth and final part of the band’s Suns of Perdition saga.

The only question being will it all end with a bang… or with a whimper?

Well, to put you out of your misery… the answer is very much the former, rather than the latter, as To Shadow Zion closes the quadrilogy with an Oppenheimer-sized explosion of fissile, face-melting fury and ominous, apocalyptic atmosphere (which, considering that the opening track of Chapter I quoted directly from the man himself, is perhaps only appropriate).

From the moment the brooding opening bars of “The Hesychasm Unchained” – replete with a poignant and perfectly-placed quote from the legendary Edward R. Murrow (the same one we used on “Fearmonger” from our second album, as it happens, which makes it even more unfortunate we weren’t asked to open for the band in London tomorrow) – it becomes clear that Chapter IV is very much the culmination of five long years of blood, sweat and toil.

Chiming and churning, twisting and turning, it’s a mesmerising display of harshly metallic, morbidly hypnotic, guitar work – equal parts razor-edged melody and iron-clad dissonance – underpinned by a sequence of dizzyingly dynamic drums parts and topped off with the terrifying twin vocals of Brock van Dijk and Tom Remigio, who continue to trade off scalding snarls and bestial growls (respectively) across the entire album.

But while “The Hesychasm Unchained” sets a very high bar very early on, you’ll be pleased to hear that there is little to no drop-off as the record progresses… in fact, you might even argue that it gets even better as it goes on, as the frenetic frenzy of “When Even the Ground is Hostile” builds towards its more rhythmically restrained, yet crushingly claustrophobic, climax, after which the sinister slow-burn of “The Damascene Conversions” finds the band channelling the same spirit of ambient auditory horror from Chapter III while also adding an extra dose of prog-tinged darkness and seething blackened menace.

As always, of course, the entire band are on top form throughout, with van Dijk’s signature brand of deviously textured, dissonantly melodic guitar work drawing from an even wider creative palette than ever, but the album’s not-so-secret weapon remains drummer Alexander Kartashov (though one shouldn’t sell the contributions of bassist Thomas Gervais short either), who remains one of the most wickedly talented, yet woefully underrated, drummers in the Black Metal scene (and beyond).

Just listen to the way he imbues even the slowest, doomiest parts of “Occam’s Fucking Razor” with an extra layer of nuance and intrigue – knowing just when to pull back and just when to push forward to enhance the mood of the music in just the right way – before exploding in a flurry of technically-stunning fills and devastating, daisy-cutter blastbeats, eschewing the allure of simplistic, stock “beats” in favour of complex, creatively distinct “parts” which use every inch of his kit to maximise their impact.

It all – and by “all” I mean not just the album, but the entire Suns of Perdition series – culminates in the extravagant, eleven minute title-track, which effectively ties together elements and aspects from all four chapters into what might just be the heaviest, hookiest, harshest, and most haunting track on the entire record, a visceral, vividly violent hymn of destruction and desolation which serves not only as a summation of all that has gone before it but also, arguably, the defining moment of the entire saga.

The danger of dropping an album this good, this late in the year, of course is that while To Shadow Zion may indeed by the band’s best work to date it could easily end up getting overlooked by the major publications (it is, for example, far better than many of the album’s which made Decibel‘s list -in my opinion, at least – though I acknowledge there are other, mitigating, circumstances involved there).

But there’s still time for you, dear reader, to give this album the attention and acclaim it deserves… and if you know what’s good for you that’s exactly what you’ll do!