The last couple of Black Anvil albums had a mixed reception here, that’s not all that surprising and I think the comment that ‘There are too many disparate and conflicting elements” in regard to last one ‘As Was’ kind of sums it up. As for the sprawling 72-minute opus ‘Hail Death’ before it, well it was a little tough to handle for all but those seriously dedicated to the cause. Fast forward 5 years and we are now given a Regenesis and I wondered if that was due to honing down their sound or perhaps due to jumping ship from long-term label Relapse to Season Of Mist? There’s certainly lots of ideas found here which means taking the group’s USBM tag with a pinch of salt. Formed out of the NYHC scene with an ex live member of Cro-Mags and Madball to solidify that position, that style is one thing that I don’t find here at all. In fact, the vocals here flow from snarls to clean harmonies. I do hear a lot of classic metal within the guitar work, plenty of solos peppering the songs and that is no doubt partly due to the presence of Sos of Sanhedrin complementing the blackened surges in style.
Things are certainly dark and black within this world in which we provided “12 tracks of unrelenting yet thought provoking evil.” From the Esoteric like short instrumental opener, we romp into the gravid rasp fuelled melodic blackness of ‘In Two.’ Trying to place the group in the grand scheme of things is not easy, at times I am reminded vocally and in mood of Secrets Of The Moon and at most scabrous a touch of Nachtmystium. There are plenty of clean edges here as well as the rough, for every surge they settle back down into things and deliver a segment where the melodicism takes over, backing clean chorus parts fragrantly hang in the air and those dextrous guitar parts snake through things. Hell, towards the end on penultimate number ‘Grant Us His Love’ we are even awarded a brass section.
The galloping double whammy of ‘The Bet’ which gives me the notion that a soul was at stakes and it had been made with the devil and ‘8-Bit Terror’ are good solid blackened bangers with tenacious catchiness about them. There’s even a bit of Behemoth about their deathly plough and the chorus of the latter has a devotional maleficent magnificence about it. These two numbers caught my attention straight away and the oddly entitled ‘29’ which follows is utterly ferocious. Other parts of the album however take a lot more time to gel and nothing here should be particularly taken for granted. Once you have penetrated the layers of tracks like the alchemical ‘Silver Steele’ though ‘Regenesis’ strikes as both a complex and enjoyable work. Embarking on a North American tour with the far more straightforward likes of Dark Funeral and Immolation is certainly going to have Black Anvil sticking out especially if they play this one with its clean harmonies and grooves which wouldn’t be out of place on a Mastodon number.
If you are looking for something a bit different from conventional orthodox blackness this one will certainly keep you on your toes. From an industrial sounding bleak instrumental interlude to the doom like depressiveness of urban living in ‘NYC Nightmares’ and not forgetting the Roman military sounding brass parp of ‘Grant Us His Love,’ this has a bit of something for everyone.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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