From the minds of Dave Hunt, aka V.I.T.R.I.O.L (Benediction, Mistress) and Mick Kenney, aka Irrumator (Aborym, Frost, Mistress) came the black metal beast known as Anaal Nathrakh. Aborted into existence back in 1998, the English duo sought to reproduce a sonic manifestation of the end of f**king everything. Through seven albums and an EP, with an ultra-modern take on black metal steeped in industrial influences, mechanical coldness, and a healthy dose of grindcore, Anaal Nathrakh has forged quite a well-deserved reputation for being unrelenting, uncompromising, and truly brutal purveyors of extreme metal. Here in the latter stages of 2014, as noxious fumes pour into the sky in their native Birmingham, the duo secrete yet another slab of aural hell-blast into the known universe. Having bounced around labels in the past, including using their own FETO imprint, Anaal Nathrakh will be shattering eardrums via Metal Blade Records this fall with Desideratum. Will the quality of the m aterial on this new album match that evinced on past releases, or is Armageddon finally losing its mojo?
Kenney and Hunt, like many before them, have striven with Anaal Nathrakh to push the bounds of extremity as far as humanly possible. In doing so, many bands tend to lose touch with that indispensably necessary element to their writing, and that is song dynamics. Anyone familiar with the past works of Anaal Nathrakh knows these bright young men comprehend what paramount importance this is to continued success. Their wisdom is evident on Desideratum, with just a touch more focus and clarity than on 2012's Vanitas. More akin to 2006's Eschaton in this respect, the music on the new album features the hyper-blasting drums, computerized sound effects and Hunt's inhuman, strangled screams and intermingles them with the more epic, traditionally metallic passages featuring robust clean singing reminiscent of what Emperor began to do later in their career. Each song on Desideratum features some aspect of this interplay, which is always executed with an ear toward building tension in a song – often to the point where the listener might want to start driving a screwdriver into his or her own temple (in a good way). Kenney and Hunt know exactly when to ease back and let a song breathe though, never hammering out the blast until things get muddled or uninteresting.
Its sort of intriguing, in a way, because the guitar on this album is played in a mechanistic, down-tuned key where the melody appears to be married to the equally mechanistic bass drum a la Fear Factory, Darkane, or latter day Machine Head. Before adherents to underground music can vomit on their combat boots, fear not. Anaal Nathrakh have their feet primarily in the black metal camp, albeit a far more futuristic manifestation sprinkled with samples and apocalyptic atmospheres. Unlike those modern metal bands, Anaal Nathrakh are also terribly creative lads who can belt out stunning leads and those oh-so-metal clean sung passages. Take 'The Joystream' or 'The One Thing Needful.' Both songs can be considered album highlights, and both of them are chock full of blasts, clean singing, that manic screaming, well-placed industrial samples and killer riffs. In fact, on Desideratum, Kenney and Hunt don't deviate from this formula at all. The first few listens might render this pattern a bit predictable, but with each spin the songs on Desideratum chisel themselves down to their own separate entities quite nicely. The ripping guitar leads in 'Monstrum in Animo,' for example, help to elevate a mean bastard of a song even further. The title track pops with its industrial cadence and a trade-off between guttural vocals, a scream that makes possessed Linda Blair sound like Taylor Swift, some mechanical voices, and lastly, some clean-sung passages every bit as arrogant and masterful as anything that has come out of Norway since black metal went weird back in the '90's.
'Idol' is another gem where Kenney and Hunt showcase their more than competent vocal talents, as the chorus is an absolute powerhouse of resonant, epic proportions. 'Sub Specie Aeterni (Of Maggots and Humanity)' is probably the most overt Fear Factory-esque styled song, but when taken as a whole, with all of the incandescent rage and powerful vocals behind it, it works.
Anaal Nathrakh are a creative force in black metal, and their strength lies in their smart incorporation of the aforesaid elements to their overall sound. In this way they never become just another grindcore band, just another black metal band, or just another industrial metal band. Thus, Desideratum is another feather in the soot-singed, iron and steelworks cap of Anaal Nathrakh. And while it doesn't slaughter their past works, nor does it fall short of them either. More focused, perhaps, with the multi-genre elements even better constructed and placed, Kenney and Hunt have found a stride and are working quite well within it. Let Desideratum be your soundtrack to humanity's inevitable demise. You might be dead, but you won't be sorry.
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