It’s that time of year where we enter autumn and a flurry of releases hit us, the big guns come out and fire their weapons. Although this year has been different in many respects and seen the death of live music hitting the industry hard, recorded output seems to be thriving and it has taken upon an endarkened edge, virulently spreading with no messages of hope or redemption. Tough times bring tough music and there are few tougher than Anaal Nathrakh. Who else can devise a lyrical line about ‘pigs with cocks in their eyes, masturbating to the end of the world?” We are the pigs! 11th album in, Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt have hit a peak and certainly not a trough and Endarkenment as anticipated is a feeding frenzy of bludgeoning intensity married with soaring melody lines. Their journey started around two decades ago and I am far from alone in having followed it right back from their totally fucking necro origins both on album and live. Continuing to work from different ends of the globe this was as usual conceived between the two disparate setting of California and Birmingham UK and perhaps something of both places has set in here as some of the album is surprisingly upbeat. Don’t let that put you off in the slightest, all the hate and negativity is present in spades too but the downright catchiness and addictive personalities of the album, that have had me playing it non-stop since it arrived really do shine through.
Ploughing in without a shred of mercy the title track electronically pulverises in a maelstrom of hard-hitting beats and snarling vocals. Its not long though since the first of many choruses with clean sweeping vocals hit like a ten-ton truck and marry that brutality with what can only be described as optimistic and even joyous grandiosity that can’t help to put a shit eating grin on the listener’s face. No joy with ‘Thus, Always The Tyrants’ a feral ravenous beast with the BPM count going stratospheric and the rabid vocals biting and snarling every step of the way. Here we have 2:33 of utter glorious chaos commandeered with military precision and Hunt sounding like a general urging his troops to be torn apart like cannon fodder. With hellish choral backing effects, we blast headlong from there into ‘The Age of Starlight Ends’ and the chorus here is an Emperor like waltz that once heard will be in your head forever, jubilantly taking up space in it and having you compelled to burst into song and pump your fists in unbridled delight. There are even some distinctly heavy metal guitars thrown into the mix. Time for the orgy scene with ‘Libidinous (‘A pig with cocks in its eyes).’ Starting slower and apart from some King Diamond like high notes this has grace and poise (well it does for AN’s standards). Watch out for the snarls stating “everything is shit” but again negativity is paradoxically contrasted with another marvellously elevated chorus amidst the porcine fury.
There’s something utterly invincible and gripping about each and every one of these ten tracks and as a whole the effect of their combined weight is nothing short of devastating. It’s hard not to mention each and every one and I feel kind of guilty not doing so with a couple. Giving some context, apparently ‘Feeding The Death Machine’ was written on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and it is the song that has the most stirring of all the choruses here and one that I could get put in front of a firing squad for suggesting has a touch of happy hardcore about it! ‘Create Art, Though the World May Perish’ is full of grinding guitars and have we ever entered a time when many aspects of art have been effectively banned, it’s a dour and dire message but one again with some hope behind its defiant chorus. Dragging us through a hedge backwards the punishing ‘Singularity’ is a multi-layered storm of determination and apocalyptic mayhem, the elongated scream at conclusion perfectly summing up nothing less than total disgust. It seems fitting to channel Verdi for the final ‘Requiem’ effectively summing up the funeral of mankind in such a frantic fashion before weeping guitar lines cast sorrow and doom as we fall over the inevitable precipice of our own demise. But never mind, there still might be time to press play again and go out on a high note as ‘Endarkenment’ is very much the soundtrack to listen to as the world dies around us.
(9/10 Pete Woods)
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