[b]When Fire Rains Down From the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as it Has Sown]/B]
Line-up:
IRRUMATOR (Mick Kenney) - Guitars, bass, drums/programming
V.I.T.R.I.O.L (Dave Hunt) - Vocals
Attilla Csihar - Guest vocals on "Atavism"
Sethlans - Guitars on Genesis and When Fire Rains Down
Introduction
Anaal Nathrakh was formed back in 1999 by a British musician/art student named Mick Kenney. He was a fan of "grim, necr0" black metal bands such as Darkthrone, and wanted to create a sound that was "pure necro".
He played all the instruments himself, and asked Dave Hunt from Benediction to do vocals.
A demo was recorded (which was later released to the public on a label), and the band gained good responses from many people, and the demo caught the attention of Season of Mist records.
On this record, Attilla from Mayhem is doing vocals on Atavism, and Sethlans from Aborym does leads on two of the tracks.
Anyway, onto the review...
Review.
Ok, the album starts off with "Cataclysmic Nihilism", a good headbanging song, ha.
It does sound quite like Marduk, but I suppsoe Marduk is one of their influunces.
Starts to get more atmospheric in the middle, about three quaters of the way through, it stops, and only the bass and drums play, then a doomy guitar riff comes in, with VITRIOL screaming in the background.
Not a bad song to start the album off with, but could have been better (4/5)
Next up is "How The Angels Fly In".
The drums on this are pretty much the same way through, just kick-snare, but it suits it fine.
Little solo sort of thing in the middle of this song, played by Sethlans.
Solo bits are good, rest of the song is a little repetitive for me (3/5)
Never F*cking Again is the third track.
Starts with the vocalist making some goofy noises, then the guitar bass and drums come in and rip your head off :D
Awesome tremolo picked riff with those pounding drums and VITRIOL's half shouted, half screamed vocals just after the first riff, this is killing music :D
As usual, you can't tell what the vocalist is singing/screaming, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a song about celibacy, lol.
I'd say this is one of the best tracks on the album. (5/5)
Now we have "Genesis of the Anti-Christ", which, if you have heard the band's demo, you will know the this song is a re-recorded version of the song "Anaal Nathrakh", but with a kick in the arse.
A few seconds after the song has started, Sethlans starts playing some string bends.
At 2:50, we have another little change, the riff becomes this tremolo picked riff, and the vocalist starts sort of chanting stuff, then a tapping solo comes in (once again, courtesy of Sethlans) (4/5)
Now, the track with Attilla singing, Atavism.
Starts pretty weird (in my opinion, this would have been better as the opening track), sounds like Mick was playing the guitar in a corridor...and had the mic at the other end of it.
Then after this, the riff comes in properly, then at 0:54, the song kicks into gear and Attilla's sepulchural, haunting vocals come in, if anything, he did a better vocal performance on this song, that he did on Mayhem's De Misteriis album.
Actually, come to think of it, this sounds like a Mayhem track on amphetamines. (5/5)
Now, perhaps the best track of the album, "When Fire Rains Down From The Sky", you really get to hear how good a vocalist VITRIOL is, this also wipes the smile of the faces of the pussies who say all the vocalist can do is scream.
It starts with the vocalist screaming some crap, then the instruments come in.
In the verses, you can't really hear the vocalist, but the chorus is the best part of the song. He starts to do clean, operatic vocals (similar to what Ihsahn and Gahhl do at times).
The second time round the chorus lyrics change a little (yes, on this song, the chorus is the only time you can actually understand what he's singing).
Later on, he starts screaming the chorus line this time.
Overall, this is a good album, the only problem I have with it is the drum patterns, don't get me wrong, they are fast and good, but track after track, they just get repetitive, straight forward blasturbation.
Codex Necro was a little more diverse with the drums, except the drum sound on that album was all done by a drum machine, on this album, I believe they did 50/50: some of the things such as the crashes and kicks were drum machine, stuff like the snares, hats and toms were live drums (as Mick is actually a drummer)
I recommend this to any fan of extreme metal.
