With its sacred tenants of trebly production, sloppy drumming-or worse drum machines, and the fear of straying from the kult/orthodox forumula, it is hard for a record to remain groundbreaking and stay "black metal".
I had alwasy written off Nachmystium as a 2nd tier band. Leviathan will always hold the crown in my book for US Black Metal and there hasn't been much competition.
With this new record "Assassins" they have released a real catchy classic that stands up to repeated listenings. It may not be kult to crank this driving around in your car, but I am too busy to listen to stuff that only sounds good in my parent's basement. Assassins is quality metal for people on the move! (now that is a tag line)
This has got all the elements of classic black metal, but weaves in some NWOBHM riffing-think Maiden, some depressive melodic elements, and most surprisingly some Santana/Mahavishnu influence complete with Saxophone???? Allrightso the sax playing is more in line with the Stooges than Coltrane, but I was surprised to hear it in any style. It even has a repetitive math rocky quality in some parts that makes me wonder if they are into other Chicago area bands in the Touch and Go world.
In addition the production is good and everything sounds heavy and powerful. Drumming is human and well done.
Like seemingly all bands now adays there is video documentation of what they do. MetalKult has it here.
1 comment:
Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I totally agree with you. It's a pretty solid album. I had written them off as another generic black metal band too. But this is a pretty slick album.
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