So, for the last eighteen months or so we have had to unite and take on whatever the world has had to throw at us in its own twisted deliverance, and most of us thought there couldn’t possibly be anything else left in the bank to come our way. Boy, would we be wrong, there is a massive slab of Germanic black metal coming across the horizon and its coming straight for your jugular.
I was privileged enough to review the last offering from Groza and I was keen to get my teeth into their new release, ‘The Redemptive End’, as soon as possible. In keeping with the presentation of the song monikers and durations on ‘Unified In Void’, the titles are minimalistic and elegant in their appearance and each track is monumental in its own carcass, the majority of the tracks clocking in at over the seven minute mark.
The first two tracks are tied together in unison by sharing the same title, albeit a differing number following it coupled together with an altered single word to highlight the difference between the two. Both share the same purpose and that is to deliver aggression and violence in equal measures. The following tracks then grow in stature and prominence, with the album peaking mid flow with the highlight, the title track, placed neatly mid album and in my opinion the jewel in the crown. It is an absolute beast of a track and is brimming over with malevolent and dirty, raw black metal.
The opening track, ‘Sunken In Styx – Part 1: Submersion’ has muscle and brute force, yet has an element of spoken word by D.M included with a clear strategy in order to add an air of mystic to the proceedings. Totally unexpected is the inclusion of the saxophone into two of the tracks, ‘Elegance Of Irony’ and ‘The Redemptive End’. Some may question the integrity of involving a woodwind instrument into the fold but it is added with such passion and appetite that it just works and curiously adds a certain sophistication to the hostile and assertive core of the soul.
Throughout the album there are sparks of ambience delivered through competent frost ridden effects and fragments of orchestration, all added with accuracy and precision to generate to create maximum effect. The rest of the release is filled with angry and hateful vocals spat out with venom and brute force. Insane drumming is relentless throughout and the riffs are harsh and callous yet catchy at times. The whole band works as a tight unit to generate fast brutal black metal which sees them growing from strength to strength
As much as the band choose to remain anonymous with no information anywhere on their identities, this is one album, heck, one band, you really need to become acquainted with
(8/10 Phil Pountney)
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