Hierophant Nox

ALBUM REVIEW

Temple of Baal - Lightslaying Rituals
Agonia Records

Temple of Baal, active now for twelve years and with a membership that also spans Glorior Belli and Antaeus, were already held in hushed awe by many before the release of “Lightslaying Rituals”, but this crushing cacophony of a disc should send their unholy followers into paroxysms of anti-religious ecstasy, being a markedly ‘bigger’ beast than 2005’s “Traitors to Mankind” in nearly every way. More rooted in death metal, although veritably dripping with blackened venom, this third full-length captivates even as attempts to eviscerate.

ToB in 2009 are relentlessly hostile, sledgehammer heavy and explosively pissed off. Massive amounts of distorted crunch make riffs that oscillate between Gorgoroth and Vomitory into an abusive wall of sound, out of which the punishing, modern drum assault offers no escape. Amduscias scrapes the surface of intestines (others’ and his own) with his demonic growl (check “Dead Cult”), his style perfectly fitting to Temple of Baal’s pummelling, in-your-face crush. Tracks such as “Hate is my Name” and “Vectors to the Void” are intensely violent, barrelling along with classic death metal momentum, throwing out squealing, frantic solos that are eventually slammed back into the swarming crush.

“Lightslaying Rituals” isn’t backward-looking or overly derivative, however; despite the unending heaviness and remorseless production, tracks such as “Poisoned Words” display a slightly more progressive side, and there are many murky twists within the onslaught that hint at the strength of ToB’s dark collective imagination. This isn’t an album that offers up massive variation or the most explosive structuring; the pleasure is instead in each individual movement from one jaw-dropping slab of nastiness to another.

In all, “Lightslaying Rituals” has something to offer everyone who enjoys a regular intense and unyielding metal blitzkrieg, as it sets out to ravage from the offset and doesn’t show any mercy until it runs out of rounds after forty minutes. Whether Temple of Baal can maintain this violence into the future, moulding it into something that is all their own and not losing their original creepiness remains to be seen, but for now, they’re in fine fighting form.