PESTILENT GRAVE : ESOTERIC BLASPHEMY
Svartgalgh
A recently-spawned solo project with allegiance split, precisely like mine, between the English and Dutch scenes, Pestilent Grave is the brainchild of Vith, for whom a focused, personal immersion in despair and anguish helps bring forth a particularly vile, mired-down and hateful brand of raw black metal primitivism. Sophomore demo “Esoteric Blasphemy” first appeared in 2008, but is due to make a re-appearance via Svartgalgh imminently, hopefully shocking a whole new audience with its uncompromisingly bleak misanthropy.
The main thrust of Pestilent Grave’s aural assault lies in a racket of despondent, repetitive, mired-down and distorted riffs, which draw from the most primal of black metal sources, and set off on a purposefully shambling course, building the kind of necrotic, grim feeling that is very difficult to fake. Whilst the dynamic of opener “Gut Rot” is raw and linear, “Bloody Release” introduces some dirty switches which pave the rotten way for the more forceful, dramatic and complete “Virtuous Selfmutilation”, which has the greatest measure of direction of all the tracks on offer. “Fucked Up and Insane/Invoking the Lost Goddess” draws out into a hypnotic, spiteful dirge, before the short and nasty rush of the title track finishes proceedings in a pool of blood and bile.
Intentionally lo-fi and contemptuous of structure (whilst maintaining an admirable internal cohesion), Pestilent Grave’s raw black metal goes further than most in embodying the anti-human, particularly in Vith’s vocals, which truly sound as if his throat has been slashed with something rusty and none-too-sharp. Although the tape-oriented messiness won’t be for everyone, those for whom ‘underground’ necessarily involves a voyage into the nastiest and least polished of corners will find this release too short for their appetites. Fucked up and obviously dangerous.
66/100
ELLEN SIMPSON
