Order DESIDERATUM here
Only a handful of moments in one's life can reveal to a man who he really is. One of these moments of clarify happened to me in the midst of a silly internet debate on the nature of black metal. A perfect stranger then sent me Anaal Nathrakh's transcendent audio declaration of war Pandemonic Hyperblast and it non-metaphorically blew my pants across the hall of my student dormitory. I understood something extremely important about myself that day: I would never be like everybody else. I wasn't born better or worse, I didn't necessarily have a manifest destiny. I was just attuned to a different frequency.
I fell in love with the music of Anaal Nathrakh and followed their career closely for more than a decade. I had finally found what was sonically, artistically and emotionally the most extreme music ever made. A music that accurately expressed how I felt inside most of the time. The band has evolved in a quite complex manner over the years, like a fractal shape prey to the chaos it generated. Last October, they released DESIDERATUM, their 8th studio album, It's not their most extreme or their most audacious record, but it is certainly their most mature and their most cohesive effort to date.
DESIDERATUM begins with a nice, yet slightly puzzling surprise with Acheronta Movebimus, a mid-tempo instrumental that mixes their trademark guitar with keyboards and samplings, for what feels like a theme song for the record. It's a song that intuitively discussed what DESIDERATUM is about. It'll trigger feelings of uneasiness and dread, but also of wonder and anticipation. It's not before the second track Unleash, that the listened is welcomed with Anaal Nathrakh's trademark tidal wave of sound and textures that fill the soul in such a unique, satisfying manner. That's one underrated thing about Anaal Nathrakh, people think it's meant to be played as loud as you can, but it's a music that has different things to reveal to you depending on the volume you decide to play it at. Dave Hunt and Mick Kenney are a lot more subtle and sophisticated than what people give them credit for.
My favourite track on DESIDERATUM was Idol, which stuck a chord with me on a visceral and philosophical level. Anaal Nathrakh's been regularly using clean vocals in their songs since DOMINE NON ES DIGNUS in 2004, it was perceived as a compromise from their earlier ideals, but I thought it gave them a purpose and identity. In Idol, Dave Hunt pushes the boundaries of his clean vocals like I've never heard him before. They shake and crack, Hunt has such a unique voice that sounds like the lament of a damned soul and it never sounded as tormented and urgent as on Idol. Another song where the use of clean vocals triggers strong emotion is The One Thing Needful. It's not as intense as Idol, but it stands out nonetheless by its sheer intellectual violence.
I fell in love with the music of Anaal Nathrakh and followed their career closely for more than a decade. I had finally found what was sonically, artistically and emotionally the most extreme music ever made. A music that accurately expressed how I felt inside most of the time. The band has evolved in a quite complex manner over the years, like a fractal shape prey to the chaos it generated. Last October, they released DESIDERATUM, their 8th studio album, It's not their most extreme or their most audacious record, but it is certainly their most mature and their most cohesive effort to date.
DESIDERATUM begins with a nice, yet slightly puzzling surprise with Acheronta Movebimus, a mid-tempo instrumental that mixes their trademark guitar with keyboards and samplings, for what feels like a theme song for the record. It's a song that intuitively discussed what DESIDERATUM is about. It'll trigger feelings of uneasiness and dread, but also of wonder and anticipation. It's not before the second track Unleash, that the listened is welcomed with Anaal Nathrakh's trademark tidal wave of sound and textures that fill the soul in such a unique, satisfying manner. That's one underrated thing about Anaal Nathrakh, people think it's meant to be played as loud as you can, but it's a music that has different things to reveal to you depending on the volume you decide to play it at. Dave Hunt and Mick Kenney are a lot more subtle and sophisticated than what people give them credit for.
My favourite track on DESIDERATUM was Idol, which stuck a chord with me on a visceral and philosophical level. Anaal Nathrakh's been regularly using clean vocals in their songs since DOMINE NON ES DIGNUS in 2004, it was perceived as a compromise from their earlier ideals, but I thought it gave them a purpose and identity. In Idol, Dave Hunt pushes the boundaries of his clean vocals like I've never heard him before. They shake and crack, Hunt has such a unique voice that sounds like the lament of a damned soul and it never sounded as tormented and urgent as on Idol. Another song where the use of clean vocals triggers strong emotion is The One Thing Needful. It's not as intense as Idol, but it stands out nonetheless by its sheer intellectual violence.
Not your typical black metal outfit, but then again I'm sure you knew that from the first note.
One fascinating aspect of the evolution of Anaal Nathrakh is the progressive integration of industrial and electronic elements in their sound. It was always in the periphery of what they did, but in 2010 they embraced this aspect of their music in IN THE CONSTELLATION OF THE BLACK WIDOW, a slower paced album that pushed the boundaries of their sound way beyond what we were used to. In DESIDERATUM, the electronic elements are all seamlessly integrated into their black metal/grindcore/industrial musical philosophy and there is nothing peripheral about their use anymore. They are part of the song structures. I don't have the sharpest ear, but I think I've heard sequencers used on drums in the beginning of a couple songs such as Monstrum in Animo and A Firm Foundations of Unyielding Despair. I thought it was interesting Anaal Nathrakh didn't shy away from electonic influences and integrated them to such uncompromising songs.
I usually don't lend such an intellectual ear to my music, since I'm always looking for something to emotionally latch upon first. My relationship to Anaal Nathrakh is different, though. The sonic, emotional and intellectual frequency of that they play makes me vibrate so hard, it opens me to a whole new way of listening to music. DESIDERATUM doesn't swerve from that path Anaal Nathrakh's always been on, but it's a remarkably strong, mature and complex offering, operating from within their unique paradigm of violence. It's not going to surprise you like IN THE CONSTELLATION OF THE BLACK WIDOW did a couple years ago and it's not going rip your face like THE CODEX NECRO, but DESIDERATUM is not aiming to out-do what these albums did and the guys of Anaal Nathrakh understand that. It's a seamless, majestic blend of these two approaches. A great record that gets better with every spin.
