Where is Grimulfr when you need him?

Here is a short sharp review of a short, sharp, 4 song 12″ vinyl EP from the USA’s Teratism, a long running and prolific (10 releases in just under a decade) black metal band that shares veteran members with the likes of Catholicon, Theatre of the Macabre, Demonic Christ and Vesperian Sorrow.

Three of the tracks are new tracks and follow fairly typical, primitive but American take on black metal- its hateful and primal, but with decent, if cliched production values befitting the bands cowled and corpse painted visage.  It’s relatively bland, but carries the flag adeptly for the genre with cold tremelo piked riffs, high pitched rasps and unhinged wails and the occasional slow, militant march. It does not take much as a reader to imagine what the likes of the three songs “Gospel of the Heliophobe”, “Thy Swill Be Dung” and “Shadows Flee the Burning Sons of Light”, sound like. They are all a decent length, hovering between the 5- 6 minute mark and full of spite and anti christian piss n vinegar and brittle, cold riffs. But there’s nothing overwhelming or groundbreaking, even for the rigid paradigms of the genre. The fourth track is a cover of Black Widow‘s “Come to the Sabbat” (also 6 minutes) an band and song I am not familiar with.

On the more positive side, the LP has some great typically black metal-y Satanic-y artwork 0n the record sleeve and back of the cover, but it’s window dressing for some other wise pretty typical USBM.

[Visit the band's website]

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