Svartfell     

Apocryphe Apocalypse

Hass Weg Productions 2012

French misanthropist Svartfell embody Raw and hateful black metal on their new album.  Album opener Terribilis Est Locus Iste explodes with aggressive rhythms and surprisingly catchy yet hateful riffs.  The guitars are fuzzed and the vocals are cruel.  Demonic melodies arise during the song's venomous middle which is a mid-tempo plod.  At the 3:44 mark a black thrash riff stabs you in the throat and carries the song to its ultimate conclusion, a mournful melodic passage. A grim and imposing main riff surges forth on The Crimson Cross.  Stone-hard vocals and a mid-tempo stomp are swept away by a speedy blast of aggressive black metal.  Baphomet and death's Heads unleashes a hellstorm of blasting black metal only to collapse into moody, slow segments and crushing breaks.  An amorphous guitar solo is thrown into the deadly brew.  Towards the track's climax Transilvanian Hunger-esque rhythms rush across the song structure.  More Transilvanian Hunger references surface in the melodic passages of Depth Of the Sacred Stone.  Shards of black thrash and Hellhammer-ish primitivism also destroy the soundscape during this malevolent composition.  At the 4:10 mark a clean guitar glides in gracefully to deliver a nostalgic sentiment to the song.  A total black thrash groove overtakes Asmodee, Le Souffle Ardent De Dieu!  It's an ugly and ravenous beast of a song as it careens recklessly through brutish riffs and catchy melodic statements.  The album closes with some moody and simple synth supported by a pounding drum and propelled by a grim, iron voice.  Svartfell have produced a surprisingly gripping and interesting album of no-frills, grim black metal that is steeped in merciless evil.