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HASTURIAN VIGIL "Unveiling The Brac'thal"
HASTURIAN VIGIL "Unveiling The Brac'thal"
By Dr. Abner Mality
What in Azathoth's name is a "Brac'thal"? I have no clue but I'm guessing it belongs to some bestiary of Lovecraftian creeps and creatures and is probably not something you'd like have knocking at your door after midnight.
Whatever it is, this Irish duo have come up with a perfect metal soundtrack for its arrival. HASTURIAN VIGIL is quite an interesting band with a truly "eldritch" sound that pays tribute to a wide variety of metal elders. It's a dark and dank sound, cobwebbed and cryptic, that at one point can sound like the arcane thrash of ABSU and at another summons up shadows of the NWOBHM. Add to that the cold frenzy of foundational 90' black metal and you have the basic blueprint for HASTURIAN VIGIL.
The album boasts four epic, meaty cuts that throw all kinds of riffs and tempos at you. "Ikaath The Seven Horned" starts us off with 10 minutes of ever changing dark metal uniting thrash, blackness and doomy NWOBHM to good effect, complete with classical guitar soloing in a MERCYFUL FATE vein and gnarly vocals out of Norway 1994. The following three tracks are all in the 7 to 8 minute range and are full of killer riffs and solos. On "Nine Bellowing Hounds", there's an awesome transition when the band switches from blasting old DARKTHRONE style BM to a pure ANGELWITCH hook....well executed.
They have created their own mythos full of cosmic horrors and ancient evils and have constructed a natural form of metal to help tell the story. When you got band members called "Cxaathesz" and "Shygthoth", what else can you expect? This is a surprising debut and I look forward to more gloom from HASTURIAN VIGIL!
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