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ATOMWINTER
Sakrileg

Trollzorn (2023)
Rating: 8/10

Sakrileg is the fourth full-length release from German death merchants Atomwinter. The last album, Catacombs, emerged in 2018, so it’s been a while then but it’s good to have these guys back.

As expected, this opus churns and barks like a horrid mix of Bolt Thrower and numerous acts from the Netherlands death metal scene. Coated in stinking grey ash and as humorous as a billowing funeral pyre, Atomwinter provide little light in their quest for grey matter domination.

Vocalist Florian Bauer, who joined the ranks in 2020, isn’t too far removed from the attacks of previous growler O. Holzschneider. There is still that guttural surging you’d expect from a contemporary death metal act and the grisly tones merely spearhead what is essentially a barrage of grotesque riffs, violent percussive tirades and at times a Swedish flavour. It is either fast, or occasionally slower and punishing.

Atomwinter as a band rarely belch out surprises but they are more than content to exist as a bludgeoning entity riddled with sharp edges and annihilating flurries. Opener ‘Ov Blood And Flesh’ pretty much sets the tone; cold, grey, bleak death metal that only smirks when another searing pain is administered to the eardrums.

Tracks such as ‘Brutal Scriptures’ offer some fantastic slower moments where the band really comes into its own and Bauer’s blurts take on such a malevolent and sneering twist. ‘The Dark Void’ – which offers some excellent solo work – is another mighty construction that shifts towards a blackened death style of mocking, and the same could be said for the glinting dread of the title track.

Sakrileg is a colossal record that drips with arrogance; your ideal soundtrack then to war, war, and more war. And now to clean up this mess…

Neil Arnold

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