I mean, with that name (though can you have a non-misanthropic war?) and that label and that cover I think you can pretty much guess that genre and picky sub-genre aside you’re in for a total racket. Now that’s fine by me (recent purchases include another Kapala live tape…) so here we..

Oh.

First track ‘Conquer And Eliminate’ hits pretty much like either a road drill or a dentist drill if the dentist has stone giants for patients. Dense, down-tuned, growled vocals half buried in the sound, relentless single rhythm drumming, monomaniacal riff. It’s just an utter noise with pretty much no tempo changes beyond the occasional guitar squeal and a second or two once in the song for a breakdown. Cool enough, I think, let’s see where they take it.

Second song ‘Total Nuclear Holocaust’ from the off seems to have exactly the same riff, tempo and layout. Totally. By the time we get through ‘Kill Them All’ and into ‘Pulverisation’ I’ve pretty much given up on any variation. I mean you get, as in the latter, a short passage where the drum changes beat for a few seconds but that is the only deviation.

‘Siege And Incinerate’ actually has a different beginning but then drops back into the Misanthropic War riff. Same speed, same sound, same utter refusal to deviate more than slightly from it throughout the entire song. ‘Civilisation Collapse’, track nine, does shift a bit for a fair part, a little more nuance to The Riff and The Arrangement but unless you listen to a shed load of War Metal I doubt most would notice. But at least it is there. Same for ‘Cyanide’ but they both eventually collapse back into the gravitational well of The Riff.

And there we go for thirteen tracks.

So what you have here is thirty five minutes of, effectively, one speed and mostly one drum sound, undeviating vocals and one riff (a few flutters within notwithstanding.) For what it is the production is fine. I have absolutely no problem with bestial black metal, war metal or anything like it. Just this effectively becomes like an ambient album. The same constant sound for half an hour that pummels you until the few variations that the do throw in are smothered in your brain.

I know, I get that this sound is almost certainly exactly what they want. They appear to be about just a relentless, grinding, destructive war sound. Something that is just slaughter with no shafts of light or let up. However, there’s not even the musical equivalent of gore as the machine crushes the bodies, in fact not even any sound of fighting in the tempo changes. Just the machine grinding on. The Riff. The monotone vocals. One dark grey mass.

Perhaps that is the point. Humanity not going out in a struggle or an inferno of fire and blood and gore caked machines but just an endless darkness with unseen machines crushing everything but the only sound made is the machines themselves. The only problem for me is that try as I might I just get that uniform sound, a wall that sadly doesn’t even make me think a great deal.

If you’re a war metal freak maybe give it a go, but definitely not for me. Sorry.

(4.5/10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/misanthropicwar

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/utter-human-annihilation