RSS Feed


STENCH
Venture

Agonia (2014)
Rating: 7.5/10

Sweden’s Stench is a horrid blackened death metal troupe, and Venture is the sophomore conjuration of this trio. It follows on from the impressive 2010 debut In Putrescence, and again showcases the unusual appetite of this band for rather unorthodox extreme metal dynamics which sit within an almost stark, skeletal framework of driving rhythms and bleak complexity.

In their strange existence Stench has an almost no frills belief system in that the songs are delivered either at pace or with slower menace and without flashy twists and turns, and yet there is also a peculiar air about it all as they ravage the senses with numerous exultations of grim vocabulary and pitch black musical jargon.

The strange cauldron these guys have provided is one that contains an interesting mix of influences; Stench somehow marries a simple traditional metal trudge with deeply Gothic strains that evoke images of pale, wasted spectres swirling in the night, all the while engaged in grim flirtations with guttural, and cavernous doom-laden black metal with wicked deathly nuances.

Vocally, Mikael Pettersson doesn’t have a distinctive growl, and yet his style effortlessly weaves itself between the stark embellishments of Tribulation’s double team of Jonathan Hultén (guitar) and Johannes Andersson (drums), creating an unholy gritty matrimony that casts black waves down the spine to cause a real shudder.

Cold and clammy is the best way I can describe this eerie experience spouted out by this devilish combo which begins its new project with the ghoulish chimes of ‘Archways’ – a remote and often repetitive streak of blackness which clearly revels in its simplistic nature and yet overawes its audience by its obscure, esoteric nature.

Stench is proof that the key to writing good yet atmospheric songs is by implementing an almost unsophisticated nature within the sound. The guitars cascade like spiky waves; rarely straying from their path, but just remaining steady and black as night. As ‘The Vast’ creaks into motion and then becomes an overwhelming mass of bony drums and barbed riffage, Stench smirks with arrogance, knowing that it can succeed in its unassuming form. Indeed, it is all rather engaging in its unpretentious manner whereby the trio cavorts with occasional Gothic grandeur and thunderous booms and flecks of melancholy, but for the most part it’s just delivered like a rolling, freezing fog. From the starkness of ‘Road’ to the equally blunt realms of ‘Celebration’ and the title track, each murky segment is fused together to form one great writhing black metal sneer that lives long in the memory.

It’s thumbs up to Stench and their elusive yet old fashioned corroboration of fleeting oddness and icy straightforwardness.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share