It’s off to Belgium with this split album which encompasses two projects tied together by musician René Thuys aka Ronarg. He’s evidently a busy artist as he recently put out a debut album under the name Bloedmaan called ‘Castle Inside The Eclipse,’ which went down very well with me, as well as being lead guitarist in Ars Veneficium. Although his work is normally delivered under the banner of Immortal Frost Production we are informed that this will be self-released and available digitally and on coloured vinyl only, rather than on CD.
Tribute for everything cannot go solely to René as Anzaat, literally translating to ‘Against’ in old Dutch, are a full blown quartet who may have gained notice on 2020 debut album ‘For You Men Who Gaze Into The Sun.’ Luckily they survived without bursting into flames and here we get three tracks of melodic blackness from them. Full of shivering riffs and cleaving blood-thirsty gurgles ‘And Death Shall Birth Life’ starts with plenty of style and will quickly infect your veins. Ploughing away like the clappers it’s a motion fuelled act of bravado encouraging fist-slamming and head-banging appreciation. If that one doesn’t get you ‘Shores Of Madness’ will get you bouncing on the spot as it has jaunty pogo-enthused action from the rhythmic drumming along with those ever trembling riff-work. Ronarg’s vocals are ever-expressive and a bit more varied here having him hollering away with dictatorial menace as well as screaming like a banshee. ‘Consummation By Decay’ can hardly be described as rotten either and is a final glorious rite of tempest and tremolo which is bound to go down well on home-ground when the band play amidst the seriously impressive line-up and Throne Fest and as support to Hulder in the coming weeks.
I am assuming Ronarg is a solo act, not that listening to the four tracks here particularly gives that away as it sounds like a full-blown band. We know that he is admirably able to handle everything through experience including the impressive artwork of the split. Moving from English to Dutch song-titles translated to ‘The Stranger’ and ‘The Bleeding Heart’ suggest a more personal project and opener ‘Voorwarts Naar Morgen’ varies previous pace with a doomy death march at first. Snarls and cracks on the drum see it upping to mid-pace and delivering leaden stomp and a feeling of mediaeval nostalgia through the melody. As we progress through the (Camus inspired?) ‘De vreemdeling’ the intricate riffs, weave around, thornily embrace and pierce the flesh with some noteworthy bass backbone and cleaner vocal harmonising. With the last couple of tracks galloping away and expressing underlying feelings of antagonistic disgust it would be interesting to translate the lyrics (which were apparently the last parts written here) and get an insight into the themes. Still, with plenty to captivate and intrigue there’s plenty to keep the listener engrossed here and it’s another cracking set of songs with both bands / projects divided by a very thin line and scoring equal marks.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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