Fucking hell, this Belgian lot can’t half make a racket! I found myself being sandblasted with discordance from the very instant I pressed play on this, the bands third full length album. To be fair, the impact hit home much more solidly due to the fact I’d listened to a CD previously which had a very quiet production job, so when this lot of nerve jangling minor chord abuse came blasting out of my speakers it nearly made me evacuate my bowels and had me clambering for the volume button so that I didn’t have half the neighbourhood smashing my door down in black metal disapproving fury.
Yes, the intolerant pyroclastic flow of Nemesis Irae’s music certainly made an instant impression. It’s not pretty, but it’s not meant to be. It took me until the 2nd listen to fully grasp the bands raison d’être, but once it sank in, it just sounded right – Nemesis Irae are all about furiously rampaging without compromise. At times, the guitars aren’t even fully in tune with each other, but for me that just adds to the overall aura of dis-harmonisation in the music. The riffs are cold, raging and monochromatic – there is no life or hope to be heard here whatsoever. This is all about the hissing, treble filled, tremolo picked hatred. Disease-ridden vocals spew out throughout in hateful abandon, mixing in some more deathly growls a la Belphegor (a band who must be somewhat of an inspiration for these guys judging by the shirt proudly worn by one member in their promo picture). Guitars fizz with coldness, sparkling like frost in the moonlight, while the drums emotionlessly form the perfunctory drudgery of rhythm, grimly driving the music into your psyche without remorse. The bass guitar also has an interesting role to play, and although it can’t always be heard clearly, when it is heard it pulls some intriguing ideas out of the bag.
Overall, this is pretty much archetypal black metal orthodoxy, with some deathly elements thrown into the mix to add extra spice. However, the death metal elements still manage to take on a black metal feel, due to the ice-covered feeling the album exudes throughout. There are eight tracks, all of which are relatively short to deliver their musical threat with gusto – straight and to the point with the minimum of fuss.
Thus, it does exactly what you’d want from this style of metal band. They’ve even gone so far as replacing every ‘c’ in their album title with a ‘k’ for even further ‘kvlt’ points (it’s just a shame there were no ‘u’s to replace with ‘v’s). Thus after deliberation, it’s clear that ‘Eradikate Kampaign’ does naught but freeze your face off, before spitting up clods of venomous malodourousness for your aural delectation. Just what the doctor ordered!
(7.5/10 Lars Christiansen)
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