Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Horrendous
Label: Dark Descent Records
Release: year_month
Length: 44:16
Rating: 5/5
If Philadelphia death metal trio Horrendous were nothing more than a good retro death metal outfit on their more-than-solid debut The Chills (2012), there was a beast lurking somewhere beneath the surface in the dark, just waiting to break free of its chains. It managed that two years later on the superb Ecdysis, and less than a year after that it’s already continuing its rampage on Anareta. Putting out albums this often does most bands more harm than good, and I was worried Horrendous would fall into the too-many-releases trap as well, but Anareta is proof that Horrendous are the best thing to happen to modern death metal in the last few years.
The opening The Nihilst casually hands you a coup-de-grace, and from there it only goes up, because Anareta, however strange that may sound for a death metal album, enchants like the song of the sirens. The flawless, polished riffing is downright hypnotic, pulling you again and again into some kind of unconscious trance and luring you, deceptively, toward its reefs. The influences behind Anareta are clear – Swedish death metal, Slayer, Death, At the Gates, later Carcass, Pestilence (the van Drunen era) – but the American trio skimmed only the creamy top layer off that primordial soup and cooked it into a dish worth a few Michelin stars. In that sense Anareta is the logical follow-up to Ecdysis, yet in many ways also an upgrade, since the new material, despite a more complex framework, sounds way more approachable than anything on Ecdysis. That doesn’t mean Horrendous have gone soft in any way, the tracks are just far more thought-out, every last bit has its place in the bigger, majestic picture, instruments and vocals are fused into a single cosmic chaos, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a more dynamic and varied album this year.
In three quarters of an hour the American trio lays out an astonishing palette of tricks we’re not exactly used to in death metal, and ones that definitely haven’t been heard since Individual Thought Patterns. Guitar-wise, Anareta is one of the most exciting albums of the year: the duo of Damian Herring and Matt Knox deliver brilliant interwoven guitar lines (there’s hardly a moment when the two guitars play the same line), downright cathartic solos, gorgeously dark melodies, doomy riffs (the start of Acolytes), thrashy speed-ups and fiery riffs. Into the otherwise raw death metal foundation, Horrendous, with a songwriter’s streak, work elements of jazz and even fusion, while the death metal ripping is built up with fantastic melodic inserts (the divine middle passages in Ozymandias), acoustic parts (Sum of All Failures) and dreamy, Cynic-esque excursions (especially the intro to The Solipsist).
And the rhythm section doesn’t lag behind the guitars in the slightest: crushing drums that are closer to jazz than to blast beats and chewed-over death metal patterns, plus bass, also handled by Herring and Knox, who string together some unforgettable lines that even DiGiorgio wouldn’t be ashamed of (the instrumental crusher à la Cosmic Sea, Siderea, leads the way here). The quality of the vocals could have been questionable if this weren’t Horrendous, but on Anareta they’re delivered so convincingly that you fall in love with the suffering, guttural vocal assault (sharing its beastly relentlessness with van Drunen and Lindberg) from the very first inhuman scream in The Nihilist.
Even though Anareta is made up of relatively long tracks, the album flies by in a flash, and every time it uncovers its many rich layers and mysterious veils anew. Among other things, there are thoughtful lyrics that fit the music superbly. The exceptionally warm, organic, natural production is just one more big plus for an album that is exactly what its title carries within it – an astrological term meaning “destroyer planet.”
Anareta has brought something death metal lacks almost like water in a desert – innovation and freshness – and Horrendous are not a band you can sum up as a miserable sum of various influences from bands of the past. Anareta is an album that looks back with respect, but carves a deep path all its own, one that leads exclusively upward and into the future. Album of the year, ladies and gentlemen!
Lineup
Jamie Knox – drums
Damian Herring – guitar, bass, vocals
Matt Knox – guitar, bass, vocals
Production
Horrendous
Tracklist
1. The Nihilist
2. Ozymandias
3. Siderea
4. Polaris
5. Acolytes
6. Sum of All Failures
7. Stillborn Gods
8. The Solipsist (Mirrors Gaze)
