Finnish black metal nutters (and I realise that is not a particularly useful descriptor to distinguish one Finnish black metal band from another) Barathrum have some serious catching up to do. This follow up to their last album, 2005’s Anno Aspera: 2003 Years After Bastard’s Birth with little new material in between other than a split with Epäkristus about seven years ago. Still, they’ve been keeping their hand in with live shows and, with a back catalogue like theirs, there is more than enough to keep them sustained in the fires of hell which they have been happily preparing for the past two and a half decades. Whatever inspired this new release, it’s clear that the dark depths of Finland’s black metal scene still burn like a furnace in the soul of Barathrum. The band’s signature twin bass guitar attack pumps up this driving, tribal album that feels like they’ve dusted off their old tracks using a wet rag soaked in vodka, psychedelic substances and a baseball bat.
The result is the band’s usual congenital madness, but with a fine polish not hitherto seen from the band’s more crust-encased earlier work. There’s something about Barathrum that harks back to black metal’s first wave: rough, raw and with, on first take at least, a preference for simpler song structures. Listen to 2009’s Infernal and try not to think of Hellhammer or Venom. This is a band which very much likes the aesthetics, and that travels right down through the form of the music – often bludgeoning and direct. Tracks like Pope Corpse Tattoo at times sound like they’ve been thrown together using sound effects from the local scrap yard – before, more often than not, warping into some twisted blackened aural assault, guitars tearing skyward, suddenly making you realise that Barathrum is actually pretty fucking good at what they do – taking over your senses as you realise that resistance is futile.
The more doomy side of Barathrum is also back – On The Dark River Bank taking the Fanatiko to a whole new level of sinister. And without wanting to throw too much at you at once, there’s a punky rockabilly edge to tracks like Arx Satanas – surly, threatening and desperately trying to get across to you that something in the world of Barathrum is, to put it mildly, not right. The band clearly feels most at home stomping and fist punching – and this is undeniably at the centre of what makes this lot stand out. It’s also the thing that will make you love or merely accept Barathrum as good at what they do. But in reality the band is much more subtle than that. Because Barathrum also have a knack for the sublime. Within each of the final two tracks, we can find this perfect counterbalance of these two aspects of the band’s musical psyche.
Barathrum often slides from bouncing aggression and into the fires of utter madness as the twisting form of Barathrum sets about consuming the listener in a mind melting, sonic conflagration. Some bands are just bands, others are a force of nature – and Barathrum is such a band. I don’t know if Fanatiko will be enough to do anything more than add a bit of new energy into the live performances, and get a few new fans excited along the way. But this lot are excellent at being Barathrum and anyone who tries to take that away from them will probably get their fingers a little more than burnt.
(7.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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