More impressive than the number of bands and projects two out of three of Triumvir Foul members are involved in – including the highly praised post-black metal champions Ash Borer – is how extremely filthy and, well, evil their take on death metal is.
At its core, the Portland trio have an early Swedish vibe drenched in heavily distorted guitars whilst battling some obvious Autopsy references – a band they incidentally covered on their debut demo last year. Yet chaos plays a much larger role here and they’ve ditched all their potential d-beat breaks and gore topics in order to sell their souls to the Great Horned One.
This first full-length sounds like a truly possessed Dismember having sex with Order From Chaos on the other side of the Styx, as throughout those nine songs they carry a sustained sense of menace magnified by an extremely fuzzy and echo-drenched sound.
Primitive and devoid of any melody, even at their most ritualistic (such as on the album’s intro) their rawness links them more to black metal at its most malign and this extra bestiality is really Triumvir Foul’s strongest weapon.
