Last year’s self-titled EP from this international entity blew me away with its take on old-school Swedish death metal. Raw, grim and atmospheric, it underscored what so many modern exponents and worshippers are missing in creating such Swedeath: authenticity. Formed from the ashes of renowned early ’90s band Nirvana 2002, Under The Church consists of two of that band’s founding members (Erik Qvick and Lars Henriksson) along with Australian vocalist Mik Annetts. As you might expect, I was more than excited when this debut full-length came up for review. But when I laid eyes on the superbly dark artwork for ‘Rabid Armageddon’ (by Mattias Frisk who did Entrapment’s similarly brilliant debut) my hunger to hear the album turned to ravenous obsession.
As you’d expect, the music is utter Swedeath from the get-go yet if anything UTC has mined its way deeper underground with a sound that’s both meatier and more obscure than that of the EP. And it’s an asset which ravaging opener ‘Sodomy and Blasphemy’ takes full advantage of: spewing rough granite-faced chords, bloody death-infested vocals and solo work which barges out like some drunken staggering zombie. Where the drumming is of the straight-down-the-line variety usual for the genre, on the title track some strategic cymbal taps and crashes are thrown in to accentuate the possessed riffs which make up the blustering (de)composition. As if to force home their old-school nous, when not unleashing sheer lunacy, the band pulls out a track like ‘Triad Ov Inquisitors’ which merges their own brand of grizzled tones with the kind of bluesy death-doom associated with Autopsy. On the other hand, they charge obliviously on with motöring death metal (‘Magus’).
I get the impression that the album even steps up a gear once it hits track five, ‘Suspended in Gore’. Where the earlier tracks exhibit similar hallmarks of crushing Swedish death metal, a few of these latter ones really magnify the horror and filth of the style. ‘Suspended in Gore’ itself is a largely dank, dingy track rammed with suffering – its archaic drum beats, doom and rabid lyrical pronouncements once again drawing parallels with Reifert & Co. And beyond that it just gets worse (in the best possible sense of course). The grooving ‘Walpurgis Night’ blasts out acrid riffs which envelop the listener like toxic crematoria smoke, while ‘Mangled to a Bloody Mess’ is a monstrous specimen of doom-ridden chugging death; the latter’s insane lyrics confirming it as the soundtrack to the thought processes of a minimally brain-celled brute. Rounding off this hopeless journey for humanity are the creepily atmospheric ‘Penance’ and head-breaking closer ‘The Trail of Cthulu’.
‘Rabid Armageddon’ is like a cloud of pitch black darkness rolling over the Earth – a perception presaged by that awesome cover art. Sure, it doesn’t add anything dramatically different to a genre which pretty much defined itself in the early ’90s, and perhaps it could have done with more variety in the odd song or two. However, as a direct descendant of that scene UTC knows how to pull off this form of morbidity with consummate ease. ‘Rabid Armageddon’ is not just an undiluted example of festering old Swedish death metal therefore, but a highly intoxicating one. Time is twisted into some other form while you’re listening to it – evaporating, in fact – which makes this an expectedly class follow up to the EP and a massive sacrificial platform from which to launch future victories…
(8.5/10 Jamie)
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*Since writing this review based on the digital version of the album, and having got my hands on the CD, two things need to be added to the above: 1) The solos on ‘Rabid Armageddon’ are performed by Erik Wallin (Merciless) and Marcus Klack (Morbid), and 2) The lyrics are better, more creative and all round demented than can be imagined from just listening.
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