Here is a five track blast of venom from Veneration. from Indonesia. The packaging that comes with this EP from the Indonesian band goes overboard on its black metal credentials. The track titles remind us that everything is infernal, there are inverted crosses and there is the statutory slogan: Total Death Protocol. It’s all a bit hackneyed but at least it’s uncompromising, and that’s very important.
Production is at a minimum, so as a result what we get here is distinctly or rather indistinctly old school. Marduk meets early Darkthrone is the way I’d describe “Infernal Khaozz”. “Infernal Damnation” which follows is more from the gallows, slow cooking, threatening and nastier than the more violent and intense “Infernal Khaozz”. Veneration don’t try anything fancy, but stick to the dirty business of black metal without frills. They manage tempo well, increasing the velocity of “Infernal Damnation” before toning it down and cranking it back up. “Infernal Pandemonium” is as basic as it gets. Fast, but basic. I had to laugh at the manic wailing like chant of “Infernal Wraath”. I’m not sure that was the intended reaction. The riff is as contemptuous as you’d expect of a raw black metal piece. If it’s possible to get older school than old school, “Infernal Reich” does that. Dirty grey crumbling ruins come to mind, as it ploughs its way through infected fields. It is intense and there’s a little surprise element towards the end with a tantalising and very brief guitar interlude – more could have been made of this, I thought. It is proof that this band has thought about what it’s doing but overall instead of indulging their own ideas, they largely play safe and take us back to the 1990s ambience of Nifelheim, Darkthrone and the like.
I give credit to Veneration for paying homage to what they want to do. “Thy infernal” is like going back in time in sound and production and was clearly never intended to be the musical equivalent of a bouquet of flowers. Whether the band wishes to insert more of their ideas, which this suggests in small doses that they have, depends on whether they want to continue worshipping bands of the past, or creating their own path to evil.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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