Review On Jun 14, 2007 by Aquarious Records of san francisco, CA
Rating:
based on 0 Customer Reviews
Title:
GODLESS - Church Arsonist
Comments:
Rusty Axe is one of the few cult underground black metal labels that can seemingly do no wrong. "Raw Fucking Metal" is what they do, and they do it better than almost anyone else. Always with a demented twist, all of their bands damaged and demented in their own way, some seriously fucked up, others just with a unique vision, but a seriously outsider aesthetic, which obviously appeals to the AQ sensibility.
In the past, we've had Rusty Axe releases from damaged modern doom masters The Wizar'd, the putrid metallic black noise of Enbilulugugal, and the Midwestern redneck black metal of Blood Cult. And the recently released Rusty Axe sampler has had us chomping at the bit to hear more from Baphomets Horns, Defecated Corpse, Demonic Mortuary and of course Finisher (best band name ever?).
To hold us over, we've got the latest release from Puerto Rican church burners Godless, an actual cd (not a cd-r) of ultra primitive blackblackblack lo-fi buzz. Definitely steeped in the Norwegian tradition, Godless have been around since 1990 and were the first black metal band from Puerto Rico, and they definitely sound like it. Church Arsonist is like a black metal time capsule from the nineties, Mayhem, Emperor, Darkthrone, Immortal, extreme Ant-Christian buzzing epic black metal majesty. Black guitars soar and squirm over relentlessly thrashing blast beats, incredible riffing, that goes from jagged razorsharp brutality to blown out dirgey doom, harsh howled vocals way down in the mix, insane dizzyingly manic leads, the whole disc peppered with bits of ambient sound and strange samples, chanting monks, machine gun fire, nighttime forest sounds, World War 2 news clips, dive bombing planes, there seems to be a distinctly warlike element to Godless as well, which actually suits their sound (just as much as the church burning, anti-Christian themes), which spends much of its time loping along at a buzzing Burzumic midtempo, super anguished and bleak, downtuned guitars evoking sorrow and misery, but with every miserable dirge countered with a blazing blast of blackness.
Incredibly cool booklet and art, lyrics and photos, and check out one of the band members, in full medieval cloak/tunic, chainmail and tights, gauntlets on both hands, clutching a mighty broadsword, leaning into the fire (although in the live shot he's wearing jeans and a venom t-shirt, but who can blame him, playing live in chainmail and tunic is rough...) An awesome, classic modern slab of blackened primitivism. Grim. Check. Cult. Check. Black. CHECK
