After eighteen years of silence Norwegian black/death/thrash metal legends Vulture Lord have returned with their second full-length album Desecration Rites through underground label Odium Records. And considering the fact that Vulture Lord exists for more than thirty years (under different names), it’s a real celebration for Norwegian extreme music lovers!
No wonder that Vulture Lord is so stagnantly inactive through the years, all the musicians are busy in other numerous projects, and many of them have quite a reputation! This album is composed earlier by Nefas of Urgehal, and he is accompanied by a bunch of talented comrades known from such bands as Carpathian Forest or Beastcraft. This isn’t a fresh material, and well, it shows, this old school devotion to black metal spirit of 1990s. Actually the band states that their music can be described as death metal, though musically and lyrically it leans more towards black metal. But there were times, when black and death metal shared similar interests and views, so let’s better not focus on these stylistic differences; Desecration Rite is absolutely pure record, dedicated to the darkness itself, no matter how much thrash metal speediness unwraps death metal brutality and how it integrates with black metal shrieking obscurity.
Structurally this record is rather primitive and straightforward, it is rich in its intense tenacity and pertinent intelligibility, Desecration Rite is created to spread the mass terror, like the machine programmed to destroy everything on its way. The album is fast and merciless, and the rapidness sometimes is going through the roof in thrash/speed metal way, with devilish pace of blast beats and abnormally aggressive guitar riffs. And all this creates a perfect balance to harmonize the gap between black and death metal, blending into something indivisible.
There is a slight touch of technicality obtained by enormously fast and ragged guitar solos (“Perverting the Bible” or “Diabolical Intervention”), but that’s not enough to make the music of Vulture Lord progressive, it’s more like a little dose of sophistication for such non-compromisingly direct and destructive music. There is some mystic and occult influence on “Beneficial Martyrdom”, but the first intro “Glorification of the Dethronation” even shows some glimpses of epic creepiness. The march-like passage on “Burning the Kingdom of God” and overly expressive emotional singing of Sorath Northgrove on “Prepare the Coffin” also point out some sort of original ideas, making this primal death/black/thrash metal a little bit deeper and more perceptible. And the atmospheric vibes sound so refreshing; in their primeval brutality and evilness they add some mystic moodiness and dissipate the bestial bluntness.
All these traditional favorite themes of blacksters, like Satanism or blasphemy are adopted inexorably by Vulture Lord, their anti-Christian spirit bursts into splashing noise of hatred, perfectly forming their latest record. Although, the cover art, full of ghostly presence of ancient mysteriousness shows a little bit more about their music, which informally digs deeper than destructible force of black/death metal mundanity (along with infrequent atmospheric vibes). But putting aside all this nonsensical nerding, Desecration Rite just blows your mind with tyrannical force and violent assault.
Release date: June 10th, 2021
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