Israthoum     

Black Poison and Shared Wounds

Daemon Worship Productions 2012

Holland's blackest horde returns with their sophomore effort that sees their signature demonic concoction being sharpened but also broadened.  A burgeoning arsenal of razor sharp riffs and raspy vocals assail your ears as Necromancer's Fugue opens the album.  I am reminded of Dodheims Gard's Monumental Possession album at times with the music here.  I especially gravitate to the melodic blast riff that appears at the 1:30 mark.  But my ears really take notice as The Unraveling Traveler gets underway.  A midtempo set of black metal riffs slash across the song, but then I take notice of a bass line that draws comparisons to Ved Buens Ende.  Really classy and captivating is that bass.  Next an assault of stop-start segments shatters bones and leads to an unrelenting blast passage and periods of snake-like undulation.  A Beautiful and intense circular melody is underpinned by alternating drum lines on the initial portion of Burning The Sephiroth.  The composition quickly drops into midtempo ravagings of rolling drums and razorwire riffs.  The vocals change on Devil Bacchus as they become more gravelly creating a darker, more stone-hard atmosphere.  The vocals really remind me of those on Gehenna's First Spell.  The track starts slowly but the drummer injects periods of warp-speed destruction within the midtempo grooves.  A cold Nordic breeze blows through the first riff of A Birthmark Of Unexistence.  Total annihilation is the tone set forth by the eruptions of speed within the steady, sonic death march of the song.  The haunting chants exacerbate your soul's imminent dissolution within the abyssic void created by the song.  Israthoum returns, stronger and blacker than ever on their second album.  Black Poison and Shared Wounds scorches and sears your body as you are devoured by each successive song on the album.