(Here, Andy Synn reviews the new album from those French nihilists in Reverence.)
As you may know, I like my metal like I like my women – black, blasphemous, and cold to the touch. Reverence’s newest album brings all these cards to the table, but ups the ante with a distinctively industrial edge.
Staking their claim to the barren lands somewhere between the crippling insanity of The Axis Of Perdition and the warped humanism of Glorior Belli, the band have been successfully fusing the angular chaos of the former with the sinuous darkness of the latter for years now, with this, their most recent release, taking pride of place alongside the arcane experimentation of Blut Aus Nord and the ritualistic self-loathing of Deathspell Omega.
Opening track (and de facto album intro) “Earth” has a slow, menacing build up, its haunting ambience coalescing into a rippling stormfront of cryptic strings, marching, martial drums, and morbid vocals. The more overt, metallic elements creep, rather than leap, into the fray, predatory, chugging guitars and restrained blast-beats chomping at the bit to be unleashed. Continue reading »