Pure Negativism: In Allegiance with Self Wreckage

Listening to this album brought to mind images of being lashed with razor wire while your inner demons laugh in your pathetic and worthless face. The potential shown on Bahimiron's excellent Funeral Black demo has finally been fully unleashed on Pure Negativism, this TEXAS USA Hell Horde's debut full-length album. That isn’t to say past splits and comps were lacking, as they were not. It is just with Pure Negativism everything has come together perfectly for the band. The production is great, every song stands out on its own and the delivery is seething with blood, vomit, and blasphemy. As for how they sound? I see two reference points being early Gorgoroth and Profanatica, with an equal dose of their own barbaric style. The musicianship is top notch but not overly technical, straightforward scathing Black Metal. The vocals shift from raspy to an almost slit throat, choking on blood, death rasp with some weird raspy semi chant like vocals for added effect. Keep in Mind this is not an album for the weak or those that think black metal should be a friendly welcoming genre. Having said that Pure Negativism is a beast of an album; from a killer US black metal horde that is sure to please black metal fanatics.

While listening to BAHIMIRON's debut Full-Length, I had the feeling that a really good band had came from Texas, but without a single drop of originality. And well, I don't ask for unique bands in old-school Black Metal, but it turns annoying when they're not more than a copy-paste taken from a well defined group. That one, in this case, is GORGOROTH.

I consider myself a sucker for "Destroyer", the masterpiece by the norwegian masters, and that is the album taken as model for these guys. That means that you'll find here speed, an overwhelming density, heavier than hell riffs, a rusty rotten atmosphere, electric distorted vocals and sometimes a phantasmagoric voice that creeps from below. That means that if you like Black Metal on-the-way-it-has-to-be you should enjoy this a lot, but you know the original is always better than the imitation.

If this album were a test for university, BAHIMIRON would had been expulsed for plagiarism. Well, this is just a Metal review and I have to say this album was a rather stunning experience, but you understand why I can't give it a higher rating.