Funny that a band from San Antonio should be named after the Norse god of winter, don’t you think? Hod takes their moniker from blind Hodur, the son of Odin who murdered Balder, a god most often likened to the sun. So what happens when crushing Texas brutality meets cold Norse mythology? You get Serpent, the simultaneously blistering and frost-bitten debut from Hod. Though the band released a demo in 2007 (appropriately titled Cry and Piss Yourself), this is their first full-length and subsequently their first release with Ibex Moon Records.

The vocals heard on Serpent are a driving force behind the album’s unquestionably evil sound. Growler Beer’s vomitous utterances chill the bones and still remain intelligible, laying on a thick smattering of filth over an already-dirty slab of musical backbone. Most of the tracks reek of a hellish, tortured existence-one that seems more congruent with the heat of the south than the cold of Scandinavia-thanks in equal parts to a grimy-sounding production, the sweaty basement show vibe of the drums, and the fuck-you tone of the guitars; it’s underground death metal at its finest. There is also a lurking frigidity in the form of dismal, maddening riffs and an overall feeling of pervading doom, traits synonymous with black metal. The balance between the two genres is effortless.

So, what we get with Serpent is a lumbering, icy, black-as-death metal monolith, a sickening exercise in sound that seeks to blot out the sun, replete with the best and most recognizable attributes of both genres. It’s safe to say that Hod could be the bastard child of Krisiun, Goatwhore and Morbid Angel. This relatively new band brings with them a very weathered sound, one that’s filled with hate and venom and everything else you’d expect to hear from metalheads who’ve spent too many summers in Texas.

[Visit the band's website]

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