### Pavor: Furioso

#### 17/02/09 || Euthanatos

For the love of all that is sacred and holy, where in hell’s darkest pits did Pavor spring from? Everything about this band’s screams “Wrong! Shouldn’t happen! Not possible!”, yet I can’t help but feel amazed and immensely enjoy this Godzilla of an album that is “Furioso”.

“Pavor is a German technical death metal band, formed in 1987. The band has released two albums in a twenty-year career and have chosen to be independent all that time”. That’s what it says on their Wikipedia entry. That just makes me even more terrified of them. Seriously, how does a band this brutal go unnoticed for twenty years? How do they have only two albums? Why do they insist on being independent? What is their endgame here? What’s the deal? My mind is going to explode.

Technical Death Metal? Oh, yes, but this isn’t like something you’ve heard before. This isn’t Origin or Behold the Arctopus. That’s kid’s stuff. This is beyond. This is where even beyond didn’t have the balls to go to. It chickened out and stayed there. In beyond. Where it’s safe. Where things are known. Pavor is like the dark matter of the universe. It’s the Anti-Monitor at the center of all reality. The entropy and the nothingness. It’s not where evil dwells, but evil itself. The ultimate embodiment of confusion and all things corrupted.

Can you tell I’m hallucinating by now? I should write something that makes sense before I completely lose it. The vocals are stereotypically death metal, Glenn Benton style, but better. The drumming and guitar work is heroesque. But the bass… Ah, the bass. You might have heard of Jürgen Bartsch, because of Bethlehem, or you might not. Just know this; he is going to blow your mind.

So everyone is a freak of nature, the devil’s spawns, all four of them. But what of the song-writing? Well, while there are some truly fucked up, insane virtuoso soloing going up and down, for the most, Pavor keeps things surprisingly tight in “Furioso”. Meaning, technical death metal, yes, wankery, yes, but never a snoozefest. But it can, yes, get a bit too much. I’m only human, and I suppose (and hope) that so are you.

The world ended in 2003. I just didn’t know it yet.

The cover: Pretty shitty, just the band’s name, lame symbol.

0 out of 10 and 10 out of 10. For Pavor is the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, we are at existence’s end, where our gasps for air mean nothing, for there is nothing to be had. Gaze into the abyss, mortal, and like me, despair! But, for clarity and sanity’s sake, an 8 mindfucks out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Imperator Music
- Website: www.pavor.com
- Band
- Claudius Schwartz : vocals
- Armin Rave: guitars
- Rainer Landfermann: bass
- Michael Pelkowsky: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Inflictor Of Grimness
- 02. Perplexer: Perdition Projectile
- 03. Wroth Volcanic Vent
- 04. Furioso
- 05. A Schizoid Uglifier
- 06. Crucified Hopes
- 07. Inconsistent ClayBlood Totemist
- 08. Dilettante’s Dilemma