Welcome to a day as dark as night but it is Belgian’s not Roman’s we are lending our ears to. With four albums to their name since 2005 this West Flanders trio were last referred to by us as “imperious and dominating,” which strikes as a very apt description listening to this album. Musically it is fast and furious black metal with a particularly vicious demeanour and vocally SvN has a feral rasp that is both elongated, rolling out of his forked tongue but also decipherable and easy enough to understand.

This is a band who don’t seem to release anything in the way of EP’s, demos or other shorter medium than full length albums and there is also little in the way of unnecessary fat to be found here. They simply roll in with a booming drum, summoning troops like a war-beat and certainly ‘imperious’ and even Romanesque in military sound before blazing into a punishing deluge of grinding guitars and thumping drums. ‘To Eternal Fire’ sees them dominating with thunderous energy and hostility, on the march and crushing forth. That’s pretty much the modus-operandi on this 8 track 38-minute album as they cut swathes and battle their way through things with defeat simply not an option. ‘Towards Damnation We Walk” craggily growls the frontman as ‘Odium Humanis Generis’ sees him bidding to destroy the whole of humanity like vermin. It does actually make a bit of a difference listening to music with such violent intent and being actually able to hear what is being said without it being slewed into necrotic squawking and makes this aspect of it interesting. There’s a bit of bands such as Marduk and Endstille about the music and it is suitably rough and raw but perhaps a little bit on the samey side and lacking in atmosphere other than going for full destructive force. For that reason, its an album I seem to keep having to come back to as I can’t say I have found it fantastically memorable after it has played out.

Still, you can’t fault the conviction and determination of the band as they ruggedly flurry ever onward and its suitably grim and barbarous with its relentless onslaught. There is little disputing that the mission to ‘Cleanse This World Of Filth’ is in good hands here and if it’s a short, sharp and concise battering you are looking for you will certainly find it here.

(7/10 Pete Woods)

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