Iconoclast Contra

Combat is the Voice of the Heathen

Red Light Sound 2010

Relentless and obscene, American fiends Iconoclast Contra unleash a black metal holocaust on their debut album.  This unholy union features ex-members of Ibex Throne, however musically the style found on Combat is the Voice of the Heathen is much more barbaric and gritty.  The bestial massacre gets underway with Murder Division.  The song is somewhat of a blasphemous hybrid of Order From Chaos, Sodom and Sarcofago, blasts of speed, lightning fast strikes of demonic riffs, and a grimy underground texture.   Wolf Sect: Profane however begins slower, more rhythmically before belting out salvos of furious drumming and hellish mid-tempo passages.  A fierce melody bares its fangs on Passage Rites to Cereberus while a tempest of drums and muddy riffs rhythmically churns.  After a blaring warning siren, you are treated to the vehement undulations of Force Fucked With Artillery Fire.  Lulls of cohesive anxiety are smashed by bursts of blast beats only to cave in to thrashing chaos as the song progresses.  A piercing guitar solo rises from the carnage before ushering in a gripping near-melody.  A subdued impression of a Transilvanian Hunger riff is buried beneath aggressive drum patterns on Torture Assassin.  The track then drags slower sections towards an inevitable eruption of guitar driven severity.  An avalanche of intense speed, similar to a thrashier Archgoat, comes flooding out of the speakers on War Til Death and brings this album to a close.  Iconoclast has created an album of uncompromising black metal brutality that unites the subterranean savagery of Sarcofago with the primitive violence of early Angelcorpse.  As a matter of fact, the whole album is the very definition of merciless violence that leaves nothing but devastation on a shattered battlefield.