If you know anything about Impiety, you know what to expect here. This five track mini album is the usual ferocious, no-holds barred assault. Violence is the order of the day and to accompany the artwork on the sleeve, “The Impious Crusade” is an advertisement for war and chaos.
The most interesting part of this album was the last track, which is a cover of Sorcery’s 1991 track “Lucifer’s Legions”. Unlike the original stripped down version, the 2013 Sorcery cover kicks out. After an impressive introduction, it is more fired up and played with the arrogant flourishes which characterise Impiety. I really liked this version. I liked what had gone before it too, but whilst I don’t expect the Singaporeans to start indulging in power ballads, their constant level of extremity creates the risk of them becoming a parody of themselves, especially on a short blast like this. Here there’s no time to explore anything, but the band still manage to take us to plenty of gruesome places and demonstrate admirably and copiously the art of brutal black metal techniques. The creepy guitar riff of “Accelerate the Annihilation” runs underneath the rampant musical war which is going on around it. It’s like anarchy meeting anarchy. Shiyathan is like Lucifer himself, ordering us to revel in this war and chaos, and constantly fanning the flames. The production of “Commanding Death and Destroy” gives the track a Behemoth feel as Shiyathan spreads his expansive form of darkness under the carcinogenic black clouds. The wildness and brutality of the guitar lines are the sort which cannot be curbed and which can only result in a bloody mess. The title track, the fourth of the five odes to slaughter and warmongering violence, is more of the same but as ever can’t be faulted for its intensity.
For originality, I preferred the cover track but whichever way you look at this, it’s hard to be indifferent to this. The message is clear: embrace the chaos or die.
(7/10 Andrew Doherty)
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