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Voidhanger: Wrathprayers
27/03/12 || Habakuk
This album review comes with a bit of preparation work on your part. Go and check out Infernal War. Questionable politics aside, they are absolutely ace, and reading that this here was done by two people from said band plus a different drummer, not even calling the band Coathanger could deter me from claiming this from the label-sent pile. Yeah yeah, I get the Darkthrone reference. Don’t really see why they used it, because this blackened death metal beast surely hasn’t too much in common with your favorite Norwegians.
After a short, retarded intro, things kick off aptly with a few thick pounding beats, and the efficiently sawing guitars and heavy production make it easy to recall the album above, one of the finest black/death albums I’ve heard so far. The thing is, this is Angel Corpse-ish death metal which borrows from its black sibling only in tone and feel, with a somewhat raspy vocal delivery and somewhat trebly guitars. Both however actually have just as much of a death metal side to them, when you think of it. The aforementioned bass-heavy production obviously does its part to support that notion. Also, the songwriting is topped off with sick, thrashy half-time breaks and groovier sections that definitely tip the album even more towards thrash and death rather than black metal.
So yeah, all’s pretty cool from the sound of things, but I have a minor gripe that in the end has a big impact: I’ve heard that one particular Infernal War album before – again, that is my gold standard. And not even in that band have these guys been able to recreate its savage sound: things just went a tad too heavy, and a tiny bit too slow on later recordings. Same thing goes for “Wrathprayers”: If only they’d speed up during the non-groove parts a little, this would kill to no end. The riffs, songwriting and punch are all there, but it seems slowing things down – I’d assume for recording purposes – makes this a lot weaker than it could be. Sometimes, studio equipment just doesn’t capture the violent feel that’s needed. In order to double-check that claim of mine for shits and giggles, I’ve actually taken a song and compressed it (without pitch change) to be a little faster – to give you an idea, the end result turned around 10 seconds shorter from a starting value of 3 minutes 50 seconds. And lo and behold, I got a more enjoyable song! Sound engineering rape or not, Hell, I might just go ahead and do that for real.
If you approach this without the preconceived notions I had, you might enjoy this album a lot more as it is. I can’t get them out of my head though, so I’ll score the “normal” version a tad lower than the raw material would warrant, and I might now produce my own, better version, more speed, blackjack and hookers included.
- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Witching Hour Productions
- Website: Voidhanger MySpace
- Band
- Warcrimer: vocals
- Zyklon: guitars, bass
- Priest: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Wrathprayer
- 02. Skin the lambs
- 03. Son of Cain
- 04. Dead whore’s corpse
- 05. Sentenced to fall
- 06. Daughter of filth
- 07. Void
- 08. The vampire of beatuy
- 09. Carnivorous lunar activities
- 10. 4 seconds of polish rambling
