PGI have good reason to include the song lengths next to the titles on the back cover of this album; whether on purpose or purely coincidental, the sixth track on the disc clocks in at precisely 6:66 minutes. I guess there was no chance of them leaving that bit of useless albeit Satanic information off the cover. Having built a solid reputation in the UK extreme metal underground releasing a debut album in 2007 and having played a number of shows including the recent Enblackened festival, I must confess that while I’m familiar with their name they aren’t a band I have previously heard and short of being handed this with the premise that “I think you’ll like this,” I wasn’t too sure what to expect.
Well I was pleasantly surprised. Musically this draws heavily from the black metal history books, while incorporating some thrashy guitars and strong melodies that give this a highly accessible feel without sounding watered down. Marching steadily ‘Into The Godless Chambers’ we are introduced to some powerful riffage that has a certain amount of intrigue that manages to successfully draw you in further. ‘The March Of The Cattle’ bristles forth with a mean and mighty swagger – at times this plays out with great haste, the drums pound away while sounding quite clinical and at one point there is a section that rolls thunderously out from the stereo.
This album comprises eight well-crafted songs that all make me want to bang my head and salute the horned one. I like the underlying sinister tone that remains fairly constant throughout and while this isn’t fantastically original stuff it sounds honest and there’s a confidence that comes across in their sound. We prowl menacingly ‘Towards Infinite Planes’ which has a really angry guitar line, while vocals are spewed forth with a hate-filled croak and sounding cold and callous. ‘War ‘Til Death’ literally leaps from the speakers and launches an assault on you, clattering away with a punkish rhythm before dropping the bomb at the end.
‘March Onward Celebrating Impending Chaos’ has a nice rich guitar sound that crawls hypnotically, and I like the “post-curry prog-out” that comes at the end of this track. At just short of 40 minutes, this doesn’t stick around long enough to become tiresome. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s rather nicely packaged with decent artwork and mine came as a digipak edition, which is refreshing in an age when everything is f***ing MP3s!!! An enjoyable album that is definitely worth checking out.
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