Music: Blasphemy Rites: Hideous Lord
Our Take
While black/death metal band Blasphemy Rites has been together since 1997, it wasn’t until this year that they released their first full length album. The Polish group has maintained a completely underground presence by not setting up a website and limiting how much information is known about them. On their debut Hideous Lord they fly through some of the most barbaric black/death metal that has come out recently and this is easily one of the best metal releases I’ve heard this year.
Although Blasphemy Rites has clearly taken a raw approach to black/death metal, this doesn’t mean that their album is just a wall of noise like others in the genre. Each of the songs on Hideous Lord features buzzsaw guitar work and frantic drumming, but each element is distinguishable and listeners will be surprised to find that they can make out what is happening. What also makes this album so memorable is the fact that there are legitimate grooves and solos mixed in with all of the noisy blasting, which is sure to make these guys stand out from the others out there. Hideous Lord may be a bit short at only 32 minutes in length, but for that entire period of time the instrumentalists don’t let up and throw in enough variety to keep things interesting.The vocals on this album are closer to traditional black metal as singer Brzozak has a harsh scream that is reminiscent of some of the older genre vocalists. He occasionally breaks into some much lower pitched growls, and even when the instrumentals mellow out slightly and let up on the noise Brzozak maintains the same distorted style. While his delivery style may not be that different from the rest, there is something about the tone of his voice that seems different and makes Blasphemy Rites distinguishable from the typical black/death band.
Pagan Records has always been quite good at finding quality underground metal bands and Blasphemy Rites is no exception. Although there are only a few samples available on Youtube (and it is possible that these could get taken off) if you’re a fan of raw black/death metal this album is worth picking up as a blind buy as it is really that good.
http://www.paganrecords.com.pl/
http://www.metalhit.com
Chris Dahlberg
July 30, 2010
