Martyrdod     

Paranoia
Southern Lord 2012

Once again Southern Lord lands a blistering crust band that just burns your eardrums to ashes.  Taking a heavy dose of Tragedy and His Hero is Gone, Martyrdod pulverizes the listener with thick riffs and destructive melodies.  The album opener Nog Ar Nog perfectly embodies this.  The main riff is a catchy, yet ominous melody which gives way to a rage filled beat-down of punishing riffs and spiteful vocals.  A punkier vibe is noticeable in the initial riff of Overkom Er Radsla.  A bit of nostalgia and bitter regret lurks in the near melody that drives the song.  The stumbling gallop of a drum line pushes the song to even further destruction.  Hor Varldens Rop leaps into its full-energy attack from the get go.  Stripped away from the melodic leanings of the previous songs, this one is pure nuclear devastation.  A brooding malice is present in the slow boiling beginning of Ett Hjarta Av Eld.  You can sense a bleak yearning underneath the song's insistent pounding which takes on the form of a slowly undulating rhythm towards the song's climax.  Cyclopean rhythms, similar to early Morne, rise up as Det Sker Samtidigt gets underway.  The song's relentless pounding drives home the shadow of impending doom that is cast over it.  An undercurrent of sorrowful melody is painted across latter portions of the track.  Slow, lurching doom riffs provide a prelude to the post-apocalypse desolation of the title-track.  Martyrdod's new album is top-form crust in the tradition of scene greats like Tragedy, Axegrinder, Amebix and His Hero is Gone.  The relentless, midtempo pounding and crushing gloomy riffs of Paranoia leave the listener drained of hope and paint their thoughts with a future dark and bleak.  This album is pure, charred despair.