Fear and dread, and a certain tingling up and down the spine, are perhaps the dominant sensations that should accompany the announcement of a new album by the Texas duo Hellvetron, whose members have also wrecked havoc through such other formations as Nexul and Black Witchery. Seven long years have passed since Hellvetron’s debut album, Death Scroll of Seven Hells and Its Infernal Majesties, but at last a new one will be upon us come August 16th, through the devilish ministrations of Iron Bonehead Productions.
The portals of Hell open wide through this new album, whose title — Trident of Tartarean Gateways — foreshadows the sulfurous abominations and terrible majesties that reveal themselves through its nine tracks. Similarly, the title of the song we present today — “Draconian Witchblood” — presages both the severity of the punishment it metes out and its air of poisonous enchantment.
The song immediately subsumes the listener in a miasma of dense, roiling and seething fretwork, while the methodical snap and crack of the snare over rumbling and pounding undertones give the music a ritualistic cadence. There is no mistaking the horror in the music, which becomes palpably manifest through heartless roars and ghastly regurgitations that reverberate from the depths of the Pit. Gleaming, shivering emanations rise up like wraiths from the boiling cauldron of sound, and then (following a needling bridge), other dimensions of the music become apparent as we’re led in a more stately procession into the presence of something ominous and frighteningly imperious. Extravagant wails of dismal fervency and mind-flensing shrieks spear through the oppressive gloom, while the guitarist continues to spawn the sound of poison and fever.
This mixture of death, black, and doom metal evokes primal fears, yet is possessed of sorcerous Luciferian charisma. Another intensely disturbing sonic spell from the record (“Tartarean Gateways“) is also out in the world, and we’re including a stream of that one as well as “Draconian Witchblood“. For more info about the release of Trident of Tartarean Gateways as the August 16 release date approaches, keep an eye on these locations:
IRON BONEHEAD:
http://www.ironbonehead.de
http://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions
HELLVETRON:
https://www.facebook.com/hellvetron333/