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GHAST
Dread Doom Ruin

Todestrieb (2014)
Rating: 8/10

I’m loving the title of Ghast’s sophomore effort; a six-track composition that comes some six years after 2008’s May The Curse Bind debut.

The Welsh trio of Arrrrrrrach (vocals / guitar), Myrggh (bass; Mulch, ex-Desecration) and Kz (drums) originally emerged from the coastal city of Swansea under the moniker of Souldust in 2004, before the name change to Ghast in 2007 and have been reasonably busy since then with their grim tales of weird imaginings and creeping paranoia.

With Dread Doom Ruin, Ghast have hit the proverbial nail on the head in describing their sound, because it’s one that is very much steeped in black metal lore with those scathing, chords of dread which evoke images of remote, stark ruin and primal landscapes. But above this littered debris is a smog of doom-laden quality that worms its way through the sound like a strong, formidable and very much shadowy presence.

One thing is for sure, these guys really know how to construct eerie atmospherics and nightmarish visions within their morbid song structures. It’s still good ol’ fashioned black metal built upon a fiendish foundation of grim vocal scraps and often cold, rushing riffs, but there is often occasion to flirt with macabre melody (‘Grave Cult Woe’) and epic, ascending horror (‘Scorn And Death’).

Ghast really builds up the suspense through this enchanting record, an opus that exudes black emotion but offers so much in between. For once I’m actually entertained by the frightful speedier passages which in the modern day with black metal can either be accused of being recycled Norwegian fodder or just completely bland, but this trio has its finger on the pulse when it comes to layer upon layer of primitive, cavernous, esoteric terror.

It’s no wonder that a few years ago Darkthrone’s Fenriz was praising these in his “Band Of The Week” YouTube show, so impressed was he by the debut, and I’m sure he’d heap further praise on Ghast when he lends an ear to the carnal delight of ‘Festival Of Serpents’ which for more than 12 minutes suffocates the listener in its deadly smog of melancholy horror. Lengthier still is the spectral ‘Demons That Fled The Ferocity Of Men’, while my favourite brush with Swansea steel comes via the horrendous guffaws of ‘Lost In Fog’, which makes one feel as if they have been abandoned in a forest of frosted barbed-wire, such is the hostile nature and remote discord created.

There appears to be a burgeoning UK black metal scene, and Ghast are spearheading this march towards Hades along with other underground artists such as Witchclan and Premature Birth, so let’s join the army and descend that stairway to hell.

Neil Arnold

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