Ruach Raah play scummy black metal with an punk evil spirit (as their name translates).  Probably best received live in a crumbling stone walled, graffiti splattered basement in their native Portugal.  All members in ski masks and faded black everything spazzing angrily.  There are no samples, no solo’s, no interludes, no god forsaken frills.  The pace of each song isn’t mid-paced but not exactly fast either.   Like a wounded but still mobile satanic youth brigade soldier they bash forcefully forward.  All adrenaline and indoctrination.  The first enemy that this kid can reach will take full responsibility for their pain and receive a boot knife to the side of the head.  The album crashes along with much spite, stink, and evil .

The promo spiel draws comparison to Bone Awl, which yes, it sounds very much like, but I have a feeling Ruach Raah come from a different background with different motivations.  Bone Awl was so clearly a US band.  They were a black metal band born out of punk and power violence; a particularly red-lined, and noisy cousin to punk and hardcore.  Down to their layout art aesthetics and song titles you can’t help but assume, maybe art school was in their past.  Simply compare album titles: Meaningless Leaning Mess to Ruach Raah‘s Hate Fanaticism.

The former plays with a word and it’s suffix, stretching it into a description that certainly sums up it’s pink album art.  Conversely, Ruach Raah‘s title screams cranky black metal.  Hate Fanaticism shares the blown out noise of Bone Awl.  However, where Bone Awl sounds like a thin sheet of aluminum being cut with a circular saw, Ruach Raah is a tin bucket of bolts being swung repeatedly at a wall.  That is to mean their recording has slightly greater mid range that gives it a bit more sonic dimension.  In summery, where as Bone Awl injected some black metal into their left field punk roots, Ruach Raah gave their black metal a white line snort of punk.

What Bone Awl and Ruach Raah share most is the lack of differentiation between songs.  However, I’m confident that I understand their context and writing dynamic songs is not the fucking point so it will not, nor should be criticized for it.  This album, along with a Rockstar energy drink, jump started my dull sleepy brain on the morning commute.  It was best clanging through my earbuds while being pulled by my pitbull on a skateboard, with power and abandon, down dark neighborhood streets.

Ruach Raah‘s Hate Fanaticism is regressive, unrepentant, bashing black metal that harks back to the primitive roots of the genre.  The sound has been done.  A sound with much heralded precedent in those late 80’s/early 90’s root bands; Ildjarn, and early Dark Throne as the promo also suggests.  It’s a decaying corpse sure but, if you’re sick enough, one that you’ll have a last bit of fun with before disposing.

[Visit the band's website]

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