Forming in 2009, this is the debut album from Texas’ Whore of Bethlehem, a band who very quickly enraptured me with their high quality musical output. The first thing which surprised me was that I was expecting something which sat much more firmly in the ‘blackened’ spectrum musically (perhaps from the band name, logo, Christ-hating lyrical stance and outlook befitting a black metal band? Or perhaps I just had a brain-fart, missing the clearly more death metal inspired Jon Zig styled artwork – probably the latter). Either way, overall I’d say these guys are perhaps slightly more comfortably categorised as a death metal band, and a pretty crushing one at that. Let’s go with Brutal blackened death shall we?!
Whore of Bethlehem do very much have a black metal edge to their sound, and it comes mostly from a shimmering, icy blade edge to their guitar sound which adds a mysterious and brooding touch to their otherwise crushing and efficient death metal riff work. As influences go, I’d say there’s a good few later Cannibal Corpse albums in the bands collective collections (the pounding, clinical riffery), some Immolation (the threatening melodic leads, and swathes of true evil) and probably some good old fashioned Mayhem when they thoroughly ramp up their chill-factor on one of their swirling, mesmerising riffs. When they’re not rattling your teeth with blastbeats, they are churning violently; fizzing blasphemes aplenty from their parapet of hate. Add in to this with plenty of meaty riffage, and you have the recipe for a fine album – especially considering this is self released off the bands own back.
Share your name with an Archgoat album and you’re alright in my book, so these guys certainly hit the ground running when combining their severe sound with the rest of their output to create an unholy union of extremity. Does plain old black metal generally not have the balls for you, death metal heads? Check these guys out and be pleasantly surprised by their crushing (yet tenebrous) brutality.
(7.5/10 Lars Christiansen)
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