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Hecate Enthroned – Embrace Of The Godless Aeon
M-Theory Audio
Release Date: 25/01/2019
Running Time: 53:11
Review by ‘Dark Juan’
8/10
This is nice. This I am enjoying. A Black Metal band that have not given themselves stupid names like ‘Stormbeast Fangmeister Murderwort’ or ‘Vvvvvvvnorthweit The Insalubrious’. This has already gained Hecate Enthroned bonus marks.
Good evening, Ever-Metal.com, I’m Dark Juan and I am very, very drunk. I have had a hard weekend of trying to interest my septuagenarian neighbour Helene in the latest releases from Gunship and Corpsefucking Art to no avail and busily defiling young women on the altars of the nearest Catholic churches in the area (there’s one at the top of my road, but before my father disappeared in the strange accident involving a crop dusting aircraft, Mossad and the song Josin E Spazjin (Google it and watch the attendant video. Immediately. I’ll wait…… Well, that’s something you’re not going to forget in a hurry, is it?) he told me to not shit in my backyard, so I go to Ploerdut 3 miles up the road and defile their altar instead) and doing that most metal of activities, DIY. Or in my case, swearing at various tools, drinking more beer and finding excuses to avoid it in the future. I bet Hecate Enthroned don’t do DIY…..
And with that extremely tenuous link to the band I am actually supposed to be reviewing, we shall plunge headlong into the cold, black waters of “Embrace Of The Godless Aeon”, being the first album release from these famous brutish British Black Metal bruisers for five years. The last time I heard Hecate Enthroned was in 1994 when they were on a bill at the original Bradford Rio’s (directly opposite a mosque. It made queuing to get in entertaining as Muslim gentlemen were waiting to get in to their prayers at the same time, and neither community quite knew what to do with the other. We became friends eventually. And then Rio’s moved into the centre of Bradford and lost all its charm) with other estimable (and indeed seminal) bands Bal Sagoth, Bonewire and a little known headline act called Cradle Of Filth. There is a point to this rambling, because Hecate Enthroned’s sound owes a lot to early Filth (think of the sound of “The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh” and “V Empire”) and Emperor circa “In The Nightside Eclipse”. To take the Cradle Of Filth influence ever further to the fore the record even enjoys a guest vocal appearance from the always wonderful Sarah Jezebel Deva, well known for her work with Cradle Of Filth, Therion, strange little goblin creature Mortiis and Angtoria.
So yeah, here we have Gothic Black Metal of the most atmospheric kind. There are the kind of keyboards normally played by a misshapen manservant called Igor in a draughty castle somewhere in Transylvania, guitars that can remove limbs at twenty paces, such is their speed and sharpness, bass which dislodges internal organs and forces them out of your nose, drumming at a pace that you would normally associate with heavy calibre assault weapons firing at full auto and a vocal that veers wildly from the kind of shriek that makes bats crash into trees to the low pitched growls that even wild boar would avoid for their own safety (wild boar are a thing here in France. I hit one with the Metal Machine [yeah, all right, it’s a particularly knackered Volkswagen Passat. It has a Hellbastard sticker on the boot. It’s metal. Scruff approves and that’s all that matters to this hellpriest] the other day. It got up, glared at me and ran off. It took most of the front end of the car with it. They are like prehistoric pigs with major anger management issues and appear to be utterly indestructible) and turns your lungs to jelly. All this is underpinned with the glorious mezzo-soprano of Deva enhancing three tracks in her own inimitable style.
Every song is high quality, blistering black metal in the classic sense of the words, right down to the slightly dodgy production and occasional total incomprehensibility of the lyrics when Joe (vocals) utterly loses his shit and disappears off into octaves where only dogs can hear him and bats enjoy a second flying rodent/ cellulose interface due to sonar interference. Standout song on the record is ‘Goddess Of Dark Misfits’. It’s incendiary.
The whole thing is a bombastic, joyful experience and a damned fine record.I love Hecate Enthroned. If you like Classic Gothic Black Metal, you will too. Well worth expending spondulicks on.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Hecate Enthroned 8/10 for a splendid evening’s entertainment although Mrs. Dark Juan is unhappy about the bloodstains on the sofa.
TRACKLISTING:
Be warned. I find Black Metal song titles absolutely hilarious. However, these are comparatively tame, so you can be spared my usual acerbic marginalia.
01. Ascension
02. Revelations In Autumn Flame
03. Temples That Breathe
04. Goddess Of Dark Misfits
05. Whispers Of The Mountain Ossuary
06. Enthrallment
07. The Shuddering Giant
08. Silent Conversations With Distant Stars
09. Erebus And Terror
LINE-UP:
Nigel – Guitars
Andy- Guitars
Dylan – Bass
Gareth – Drums
Pete – Keys
Joe – Vocals
LINKS:
https://hecateenthroned.wixsite.com/home
https://www.facebook.com/HecateEnthroned/
Tweets by hecateenthroned
https://www.instagram.com/hecateenthronedofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-egXDZlUUI-Cn4V44xHYg
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of [user_login] and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.