Anyone familiar with Craven Idol will know the band’s two releases to date have pointed towards considerable talent and flair for mischief. Unlike a lot of blackened thrash bands these North London lads do not hold back on tampering with the formula with numerous nods to the old school as well as delivering creative pulses of black flame. In fact, a repeat of the last two albums – both satisfyingly rabid and engaging at the same time – would have been more than acceptable. But Craven Idol seem to have pulled out something far more single minded than previous releases, more direct and, well…. huge. Forked Tongues is like a bolt of lightning. It’s Craven Idol with sharper blades, more volcanoes, more dragons with more heads, faster guitars, more punishing basslines, harder, blacker, bloodier, more death, more sacrifice, more destruction on a titanic scale. Frontman S Vrath & Co have decided to elevate themselves from underground stalwarts with a knack for experimentation who can more than hold their corner in a dirty blackened death metal street fight – into the burning lights of centre stage.

This is the third album from the band in its 15-year lifespan and clearly the moment Craven Idol has decided to go thermonuclear on yo’ ass. After a global pandemic, a month on the road with Mystifier – both of which seem to have provided the band some time together to gel even more effectively what was undoubtedly already there – the wheels of the Craven Idol war machine have been fully oiled. Add some speed – and I mean SPEEEEEED – guitars and what we have here is a soundtrack to the end of times that is worthy of being applied to such an event. This is a release you could hear over the top of the screams and the explosions as Typhon and his unspeakably ugly chums tore the world and its godly pretenders limb from limb.

Forked Tongues all takes place against the backdrop of a foreboding tale of craven idols of high legend – the return of the monster Typhon to settle old scores. Once banished by Zeus he now returns from his volcanic prison to find slothful and arrogant gods weakened by their own self-indulgence. It’s not too hard to imagine how that works out for the flabby Greek deities hungover from an eternity on nectar. But for Craven Idol this is a triumph of slavering insanity. Pretty much everything has been turned up to 11 since 2017’s The Shackles of Mammon. The production, the racing tempo, guitar solos that reach so high and race so fast they’ll give you a nose-bleed, surging melodies that break through black clouds of thundering bass and kaleidoscopic percussion.

Forked Tongues is relentless in its ambition and glories in a sound familiar to fans of bands like Destroyer666 and Aura Noir as well as the fierce end of the thrash spectrum – Slayer and Sodom. But this is no blackened facsimile. As on previous releases, Craven Idol adds layers of restless personality and flair typical of a very traditionally British approach to music (and probably not applied enough in British heavy metal these days). Yes, of course, opener Venomous Rites kicks off sharpish with a slick, jarring riff that should satisfy anyone that ever had a fleeting interest in blacked death metal while The Wrath of Typhon fittingly, and quite seamlessly, replaces sheer speed with flesh ripping aggression that could have been spewed forth from the bowels of the hideous hundred headed dragon himself. Let’s just say the first half of the album is a masterclass in rabid blackened riffs. Did I find myself wondering whether this was at the expense of some of previous albums’ more nuanced, wandering arrangements? The blacker side in exchange for more thrashing death? I certainly did. But, by the time you get to the title track – from its seething groove to screaming finale – there’s a palpable change in trajectory. Perhaps what follows is an attempt to set right the balance on Forked Tongues. Just when you were beginning to enjoy having your internal organs sonically battered from inside out, the band unpacks all its wares for not one but two 9-minute tracks. At these speeds that’s a lot of minutes to pack out. But it’s in this latter part of the album you can likely hear the less obvious influences in Forked Tongues that were perhaps more clearly outlined in previous releases. As name checked by the band, Bathory, Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Gospel Of The Horns and Absu can all be identified as well as those formerly mentioned, and many others. What follows is glorious to behold. This is what makes Craven Idol stand out.

Forked Tongues raises the temperature a few thousand degrees and, I have to say, I love it. But it’s a slightly different beast to Towards Eschaton and Shackles of Mammon so does not stand as a usurper to those two. Where this excels is that it feels tighter and incendiary. Something has clicked with Craven Idol here and I think it will stand to raise the band’s profile to the attention of more than a few.

(8.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)

https://www.facebook.com/cravenidol

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/forked-tongues