Review: Panzerfaust “The Lucifer Principle”

Panzerfaust “The Lucifer Principle”
Avantgarde Music

The Canadian black metal import under the name of Panzerfaust was formed in 2005. Although they are categorically a black metal band, they claim the follow no ideology and no dogma.

As most of the black metal bands have, I assume.

To my shame i jumped to the Panzerfaust wagon quite unprepared. Listening their back catalogue of three albums The Winds Will Lead Us… (2006),  The Dark Age of Militant Paganism (2008), Jehovah-Jireh: The Divine Anti-logos (2013) the band stylistically was never a traditional black metal band, relying more on the slow rhythm atmospheric songs with dark cleaner vocals then the frantic blast beasts with razor-sharp screams.

And their new EP The Lucifer Principle is no exception, on the contrary, it’s a step evermore forward. This is the darkest and most eerie offering yet.

The production is all over the place; although all the songs here are mostly mid-tempo the sound is heavy as fuck and compliments the tracks perfectly. The vocalist Goliath never sounded so dark and ominous, its quite obvious that there’s quite a bit of filters in his voice but really who gives a damn when its sound so good in the tracks.

The spoken clips in The First Con Man, the First Fool and Axis Mundi fit in perfectly with the vibe of the EP and make the overall listening eve more uncomfortable.  This is a very hard to listen EP at some moments. Not that is a bad release but at times I need to pause the songs to get my shit together after such a mindfuck.

There are not bad songs in here, all four of them are very good but the real gem here is the last track in the EP; God’s Gonna Cut You Down which is a cover from the Man in Black himself; Johnny Cash. This is how you do your covers, you assimilate the song in your own sound and it’s a kick ass of epic proportions.

Definitely a stand out in the The Lucifer Principle EP and just because of this song this release is worth checking out.