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VHOLDGHAST
Låt oss förbrinna

ViciSolum Productions (2015)
Rating: 8/10

Låt oss förbrinna is the debut release from Swedish death metallers VholdGhast. The band formed in 2002 and is a quartet consisting of vocalist Jonny Petterson, who is also responsible for guitars and programming. He’s backed by guitarist Fredrik Ringström, bassist Rickard Persson, and drummer Christian Netzell.

When I heard about these guys releasing an album, I had slight concerns that it might have been the usual Entombed / Dismember-styled guttural riffing and black ’n’ roll hints, but this is far removed from that sound. VholdGhast marry heavy, gnarly death metal with black metal nuances – one moment offering up huge, twisted riffs of deathly blackness, only to be injected by black metal sneers and dissonant waves of spiky velocity.

This debut composition offers up eight tracks, which run in total just short of 33 minutes. The music is kept relatively simple but always heavy and at times perverse as the death metal boundaries are flexed to make way for those blackened interruptions.

The album opens with the hammering title track, which is rich in weight; pummelling in its rhythm and sternly effective with its deep, bellowing vocals. This is very much out and out death metal until the gradual evolution into black metal aesthetics, which are incorporated around the one-minute mark with Gothic keyboard strains and that vocal burp. It’s an interesting mix, considering I’m often bored by the repetitious nature of blackened death metal fusing.

This is aggressive stuff, although it is effective as a deathlier bludgeoning. It seems that as soon as any band mixes black and death metal styles that Behemoth comes to mind, and this sound isn’t too far removed from that frothing chasm of intensity, especially with those arrogant Gothic overtones displayed toward the end as the vocals boom with slimy aplomb over that pounding drum. However, because the album is reasonably short we don’t really get bogged down by the usual influences and a majority of the tunes hammer along at a nice pace. The best of these is the chugging accessibility of ‘I Am’ with its punishing riffage and commanding squawks, and my favourite atmospheric chamber of ash-coated death metal in the form of ‘False Divination’.

From its Goth-drenched introduction where the programming really comes to the fore with eerie lacing and with that combination of fast, annihilating riffs and unrelenting drum blasts, it makes for a real potent experience. Again though, the vocals are key here. They successfully shift between bellowing, chesty orders, and then maniacal yelps of anguish. There’s also a nice blending of the expected faster barrages and mid-tempo catchiness and so every song is actual an extreme metal joy to behold, and all carried with a degree of arrogance and snarling splendour.

Neil Arnold

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