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UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN
Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath

Iron Bonehead (2014)
Rating: 7/10

With a moniker straight from the weird reaches of author H.P. Lovecraft, Chilean oddities Unaussprechlichen Kulten have released their third tirade which comes with an equally disturbing title. Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath is a nine-track enigma formed from the band’s fascination with the aforementioned deceased author and his peculiar works of sci-fi horror.

Daubed in queer nuances, Unaussprechlichen Kulten’s latest offering to the grotesque gods of the unnameable is one that revels in the cosmic obscure. It is death metal by name and nature, but heard and played through a veil of stark, foreboding yet rarely seen horrors, just as Mr Lovecraft would have hoped.

The combo consists of four clearly unhinged musicians in the form of vocalist / guitarist Joseph Curwen who is accompanied by bassist Namru Impetradorum Mortem, drummer Butcher Of Christ and further guitar ghoul Herbert West.

As one would expect from such Lovecraft worshippers, this is pretty brutal death metal played the old school way in that the vocals are extremely deep and chesty while the rest of the team conjure up a manky, yet dense barrage of doom-laden riffage, weighty drums and suffocating bass-lines which toy eerily with the silt-soaked solos. Pacier moments also come and frequently as well, the posse vomiting out a morbid death metal soundscape that hints at a torrid mixture of, say, Grave, Suffocation, Immolation et al.

There is certainly a mouldy aspect to such a guttural instinct as they plough through such chart favourites as the murky ‘The Hooded Baphomet Bleated’ and the horrid ‘La Recta Provincia’. None of this sordid extremity is in any way shape or form original, but the dank air due to its worship of Lovecraft means that lyrically it always remains intriguing, even if the overall framework is not too dissimilar to so many bands who originally found greater success previously with such aggressive intent.

With the grotesque galloping of the damp ‘Kadath In The Cold Waste’ and the squalid throes of ‘Spirals Of Acrid Smoke’, Unaussprechlichen Kulten dabble in pungent death metal for those who like the stench of sombreness to pervade the usual air of foetid belligerence. In my opinion the band is far more effective as the pace slows, but for the most part this album is constructed of rotten, faster rhythms which echo that early 90s classic death metal tirade.

I will admit that I expected something a touch creepier, but when all is said and done I love old, rank death metal, and that’s exactly what this is.

Neil Arnold

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