The debut album by this dark, hybrid band Coltsblood begins with a terrifying black abyss of noise; of screams and a descent into some hell that I haven’t heard the like of since ‘Into The Crypt Of Rays’. ‘Beneath Black Skies’ then kicks in with what proves to be the signature sound of this remarkable band; slow and tortuous Winter-esque doom mired in almost Teitanblood filthy black metal feel and half buried crying vocals. We get moments of almost-melody, discordant lines stretched across the black skies, and we get a feeling of all hope and all human reference ripped away. No one note repetitions, no barked words that could be anyone doing anything. Fourteen minutes of something that without a shadow of a doubt is a band called Coltsblood. See, generic sludge bands? Can be done. And the next song ‘Blood’ is a galloping two minute racket of down-tuned violence, black metal meets grind in that thick tar-pit.
Two ex-members of Black Magician, one of them also ex-Conan, shows the love of extreme slabs of falling granite riffs, that slow motion riffing pushed into darkness which has as much in common with Celtic Frost as it does with sludge or doom in general. We get gear changes aplenty in the bulldozing likes of ‘Grievous Molestation’ that keep the attention in seven minute songs and longer, those haunting lead lines just taking it more off kilter than ever.
The song-writing though makes this seven individual songs on a coherent album, not a great dull grey mass of turgid riffing numbing your brain. No, this is a living nightmare. Coltsblood are the sound of bas-reliefs in vast cyclopean cities long since lost, inhuman and abhorrent depictions of the deprivations of obscene beings and their worshippers. This is the sound that I have heard a couple of bands stretch for, but fail to reach. Listen to ‘Ulfeanor’ and just ride the great primitive riff through each rise and fall, and be just buried by the black avalanche as it picks up speed. Then be picked up and set atop the roof of the vast edifice and see a yawning abyss stretch out below. Listen to closing track ‘Return To The Lake Of Madness’ for a weird, dark instrumental that pummels and twists through its subterranean course. The best part, the secret here, is the variation and the willingness to use different vocal styles, to place lead guitars over the huge riffs, to drop the drums out to ride a discordant or eerie sound, to bring them in with martial rhythm and work some compelling sound sculptures with this huge flexibility.
Coltsblood are the sound of the dark and the pitch black, the cyclopean and the non-Euclidean worlds. As a debut they have produced something utterly wrong. Praise the old ones they have. Visionary and borderline lunacy, this is one stunning debut.
(9/10 Gizmo)
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