“There is no one righteous, not even one; no one seeks God. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of the Lord before their eyes. Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come.”

(Romans 3:10-18, Revelation 14:7)

After arguably being replaced and Christianity’s nastiest band by Impending Doom and Sleeping Giant, Alabama’s With Blood Comes Cleansing return with a vengeance to follow up to their immense debut, Golgotha, a record that put most devil worshippers to shame with its intensity.

Despite my worries about the band possibly being “Victory-ized” with their jump from Blood & Ink Records, Horror, is every bit as heavy and brutal as its successor, and comes with the expected slight development and maturation, by way of slightly more coherent focused songs, as opposed to one 25 minute bowel quake, like the debut.

That being said, WBCC are still one of the very heaviest of the current crop of deathcore bands and one of the few not fucking with the formula by adding synths, clean vocals or Meshuggah like angularity. Horror is pure, sonic heft and malice-but with a message! As I stated in my review of Golgotha (yeah I’m being lazy recycling one of my own lines), WBCC is Christian metal for the kind of extreme far right, fury and flame, OG Christians that nail bomb abortion clinics, not namby pampy, touchy feely, Christian, pseudo metal heads that like a clean segment in every song. Just look at the quote above from the opening “Intro”. This is savage stuff, if by virtue of today’s musical climate, a bit too familiar.

The 12 songs blow by in 35 minutes of surly, crumbling girth and the expected squealing blasts layered with cavernous bellows and high pitched shrieks. Tracks like “Lash Upon Lash”, the Ion Dissonance like lurch of “Forsaken”, “The Suffering” and “Eternal Reign” imbue the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament, both lyrically and musically, this is no grace filled, harps and angels, clichéd, John 3:16 bullshit. Horror is the soundtrack to Revelations-just listen and read the lyrics to “Abaddon’s Horde” and “Carnivorous Consumption” for punishing, literal proof.

To finish and to use another lazy, cheap analogy, if most Christian metal is “Jesus Christ, Superstar”, WBCC is Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ” and an album befitting the most brutal book of all time.

[Visit the band's website]

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