AD HOMINEM - Totalitarian Black Metal review

 

AD HOMINEM - Totalitarian Black Metal

Osmose Productions

There's a reason why there's no Bandcamp link for you to check out and instead I give you a Youtube link. It's because AD HOMINEM are hated and cancelled from certain platforms. Now personally I'm a fan of AD HOMINEM. I got into em with their Climax of Hatred full length from 2005. I've always considered em one of the best bands the French Black Metal scene had to offer over the decades. 

So before I get into this latest full length. I wanna make a point to acknowledge a few things. Black Metal is pretty much about hate. And sometimes that hatred is directed toward religion. Now there are people who think it's fine if Black Metal acts have songs attacking one major religion aka: Christianity. But these same people also believe if a band attacks the two other major Abrahamic religions then they're horrible and need to be cancelled. To me that's the stance of a hypocrite and you shouldn't be listening to Black Metal at all. 

Now Totalitarian Black Metal (great title by the way) is AD HOMINEM's seventh full length since starting out back in the late 1990's. Kaiser Wodhanaz performs all instruments and vocals. Musically for the past two decades AD HOMINEM's sound is basically a French version of Panzer Division era MARDUK. You've got this ferocious sound from the start of this release. The guitar work is vicious, the drum work is in almost constant blast beat mode.

Of course Kaiser has that hate filled bestial scream to his vocals which makes the songs sound even more aggressive. There's nine cuts overall in a little over thirty one minutes. I like most of the songs but there are stand outs like the title track which will rip your fuckin head off. "Choke the Woke" is a Black n Roll cut which will piss off the hiptards. "The Nuclear Solution" is a fuckin blast fest. I mean this is fuckin slam pit action Black Metal. "Saturday Night Gulag" is also a ripper. 

In the end you've got to be intelligent enough to get the joke. Kaiser Wodhanaz is just a master troll who knows what buttons to push to piss off the weak losers out there. Of course he does it via great sounding furious Black Metal. This is another great album by AD HOMINEM. I'd say the cover art is better than the last two CDs. I want it as a large poster. Kaiser Wodhanaz has a formula to his BM sound that works.  

https://www.osmoseproductions.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaCNSKYsW_0

MINENWERFER - Feuerwalze review

 

MINENWERFER - Feuerwalze

Osmose Productions

Over the past bunch of years MINENWERFER have become my favorite US black metal band. Oddly enough this is the first time I've ever written about em because I had gotten their releases always a year or more after they came out. The band, who are a two piece act hailing from California (yeah I know go figure?) started out in 2007. I first learned about em in 2015 when I bought a six song EP by em, Kriegserklarung, which came out the year before. Since then I've been a huge fan for many reasons. 

MINENWERFER (which means mortar) is a black metal act whose music is dedicated / inspired by the horrors of World War One. Now look you can be a kvlt type who screams Satan, be anti religious and swear by the Nordic battles of the north lands which you've never been to. But I'm a military veteran and I'll just say that the inhumanity towards your fellow human beings in a combat situation is far worse than listening to a BM album. 

Be that as it may, long before I was into black metal I was reading books about World War One and it wasn't a great war. The reading material I was checking out were more first person accounts which makes MINENWERFER's music, on here or past releases, come across as a soundtrack to a human death sentence. 

As the whistle blows on the opening track "Cemetery Fields" you know men climbed out of trenches and charged into which was pretty much a fire-ring squad. Add to that if they found cover it was in an artillery shell crater filled with muddy water and maybe the rotted body of a fallen friend. Harsh vocals provided with the horrific bombastic beats by this band is probably nothing compared to the real shrieks of horror given forth by grown men back then.

As I listen to this album I cannot think of anything other than artillery bombardments, machine gun fire and death. That's a pure homage to the riffs, blastbeats and guitar soloing. I always thought one of my favorite death metal bands, GOD DETHROWNED did a great job with their trilogy of WW1 as far as war metal goes years ago. But that was death metal. 

On this album you can actually envision the rats feasting on the dead body of a fallen comrade. MINENWERFER push the at-tee' with realization on "Eternal Attrition". Harsh reality with pure blackened sadness, you're gonna die and nothing is going to stop it. I thought 2019's Alpenpasse was an amazing piece of work. This new one has be in a shock and awe state. The vocals are not just screams of war but also like the angel of death conveying it's love over the battlefield. While the guitars, bass and drum work push the savagery of war without regards. This album is a brilliant piece of black metal work. 

https://www.osmoseproductions.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/feuerwalze

NATTVERD - Vandring review

 

NATTVERD - Vandring

Osmose Productions

Now before I get into this one there needs some explaining. This is the third installment of a trilogy which NATTVERD started back in 2019 with their EP Skuggen. The second part came with 2000's Styggdom full length. So basically it's a package deal but if ya want to start here you would not be wrong. 

For those of you late for the trilogy party, NATTVERD are a black metal act from Norway. Yes it's Bergen, Norway to be exact. Yeah I can just see the excitement in your eyes over that truth bomb. The band has been around for over a decade. But their debut release was the Vi vet gud er en logner full length from 2017. 

Instead of going through the past parts of this trilogy and making comparisons. I'm just going to point out what's decent about this release and the band overall. Then later I'll add some commentary on the trilogy. Musically NATTVERD truly follow in the footsteps of their fore-bearers. The basic template is second wave black metal with all the bells, whistles and generic structures. but then it gets better.

A few times NATTVERD will kick into some black n roll which sounds so fuckin cool. They temper their aggressive blast-beat / tremolo riff action with some fine atmospheric elements as well as sincere melody. If you're familiar with the first two installments of the trilogy then you're thinking they saved the best for last or the band just progressed to a higher plane.

Personally all I can say is that this is the best thing I've heard from NATTVERD. Then again in the grand scheme of black metal 2021 it's not overwhelming. If this band could hear me I'd say no more trilogys. Just take what you do on here with the amazing drumming, the varied vocal style of harsh and satanic frog as well as the cool song melodic yet punishing song structures and advance it to the next level. 

Chances are NATTVERD are already working on that so I can't wait for that one. But as far as this goes if you've followed the trilogy from Skuggen onward then you'll like this. My thinking is that Osmose Productions will eventually release the trilogy as a box set. If you're gonna wait for that then never forget NATTVERD.

https://www.osmoseproductions.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/vandring

IMPALED NAZARENE - Eight Headed Serpent review

 

IMPALED NAZARENE - Eight Headed Serpent

Osmose Productions

As far as my history with this Finnish black metal act goes. Yeah their first 3 albums are BM classics. But let's be honest, when it comes to second wave black metal from the early nineties we fans thought it all was good. But when the latter part of the decade came about the cadre of second wave stalwarts either broke up, continued onward with the same thing or evolved into other genres. 

So when it comes to IMPALED NAZARENE did they evolve or devolve after 1994? To me there's always going to be a question mark on that one. But in all honesty these guys were delving into the whole blackened punk/speed metal thing a full decade before DARKTHRONE. So after listening to this newest release and first since 2014's Vigorous and Liberating Death. I'm wondering if they're fucking around with us fans or are they really crazy ass SOBs in for a good time?

The answer to that last question is, both. For me I had a great time listening to Eight Headed Serpent. There's a cool blackened punk/speed metal vibe running in parts of the album. But overall IMPALED NAZARENE shows that they still remember the early days. They're still into goats aka the opening track "Goat Of Mendes". 

But you've got those savage vocals, the menacing song structures and an overall hate fest of riffs and rhythm section pounding. There's thirteen songs in all. The short ones are fun rippers. My favorites are the ones that surpass the two minute mark and toss in a Tom G. Warrior grunt, yeah "Shock and Awe", along with a cool bass line. 

All in all Eight Headed Serpent is one of my favorite albums of the year as well as being a welcome return for some old favorite Finnish BM legends. 

https://www.osmoseproductions.com/

LISTEN HERE: 

https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/eight-headed-serpent