Although a new name, the band members of The Howling Chaos have done the rounds in the world of death and black and extremely brutal metal. No doubt there’s plenty of blood and gore in there. One of the band members indeed played in a band called Bunuhdiri, which to this westerner sounds exotic but I’m informed is the Malay for suicide. The Howling Chaos now come forth with their Lovecraftian tendencies and present us with this blackened death EP.
The constant Lovecraftian references do nothing for me but it’s the intent that counts. Starting with “Visceral Void”, I was immediately struck by the stripped back, underproduced element. The drums have a voice of their own. The riff is persistent and downtrodden, rising twice, and do justice to the opening line “there is nothing better than oblivion”. I like the rawness of it. The title song and especially the chorus and driving riff reminded me a little of Rudra. It’s death metal but something which moves along nicely and which a live audience could engage with. Appropriately for the band name the guitar flails and howls from time to time, and all in all “Obsecration” is a raw but engaging piece of death n roll with evil intent. “Dream Death Majesty” is dirtier and an all-out assault, with an impressive break for a brief bit of atmospheric malevolence. “Acolytes of the Cold Flame” would have been better if it was longer. At the beginning there’s the hint of a cold wind, which would have been more effective if it had invaded our bodies for more than a stingy 5 seconds. I’m more of an Auster or Thurber man myself when it comes to American literature, but isn’t Lovecraft dark and spooky? Here’s an opportunity missed. A deep and powerful line then signals a new start, but once again is not exploited as the band head off with admittedly evil intent into a wordy and raw death metal assault. Less words, more intense and infectious atmosphere, please. The sampled roaring beast at the start of “Primal Shrine” gain serves little purpose, and barely paves the way for another bout of dark energy. The instrumentals as ever are sharp, and provide a menacing driving force, which for me ran out before its time. The album closes with “Nyarlatholep”, possibly for me the highlight of the album. The band allows themselves time to build up into a blasting, good old-fashioned deathly thrashfest extolling the virtues or otherwise of the crawling chaos that equates to Nyarlatholep.
I must confess that the idea of having Lovecraft rammed down my throat was a put off, and as an album it is a bit lyric-heavy, but this wasn’t my biggest reservation. The Howling Chaos are great musicians and this ep is full of darker than dark energy and powerful passages. So that’s good, but I had the impression that the whole thing was rushed as if the band had limited time in the studio. Instead of exploiting atmospheres in such a way as to infiltrate our brains, opportunities were missed and “Obsecration” came across to me as patchy and disjointed. Yet I loved the rawness of it, fire is all around us and it has exciting moments. Good, but not great.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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