A fine way for legendary UK underground imprint Cacophonous to reopen their doors, Our Father paints The King Is Blind as evangelists for a new approach to harnessing well-worn, malevolent ingredients.
In some respects, they’re a straightforward bunch: these songs are built primarily on dark, serrated-edge riffing and hulking, mid-paced grooves that sit somewhere between latter-day Satyricon and the marauding rumble of Amon Amarth.
Songs like Fragility Becomes Wrath and Bloodlet Ascension revel in snarling, stripped-down fortitude and unease. The direct approach means a glut of songs that dodge subgenre definitions: the twisted likes of Mors Somnis and Devoured ooze blackened disdain, but also death, thrash, doom and even Bay Area groove metal.
As skilled at the slow-motion threats of Mourning Light as they are going at full, furious pelt on the short, sharp Amen, this band have produced a devastatingly potent and exciting heavy metal album that could have genuine crossover potential.
