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PEASANT
The Lonewolf EP

Blackwood Productions (2022)
Rating: 9/10

Okay, it’s time for some scary shit. Turn out the lights, close your eyes and dwell in the pitch black cesspit created by UK black metal act Peasant.

Not since those days of Darkthrone’s transformation into black metal have I been so eclipsed by darkness, and the last time before that was Bathory’s classic 1985 opus The Return…….

If you don’t know Peasant then let me take you behind the curtain. Hailing from Northern England, Peasant feature the aptly named S. Blackwood (vocals, guitar and bass) alongside G. Proctor (drums). Blackwood is best known for his work with Old Corpse Road, as well as Blood Countess, Arcane North and Wynter Myst.

The Lonewolf is the band’s debut EP and is an utterly vile, lo-fi, ice-cold three-track affair that sweeps you up in its talons and transports you to the most hideous of tundra’s. The speedy, frosted guitar tone acts as a blanket of sideways hail and the percussion and bass join like swirling, clawing entities of frost and fire which hack, nip, gnaw and rake at your bones.

I quite often get bored with the black metal scene, it’s as if bands run out of ideas and so every now and then I take a breather from it. However, this release just isn’t going to be bettered for a long time because as the title track opens up this scratching, seething masterpiece I’m dumbfounded by its bewitching power.

The twosome builds a vast, ice-caked wall; an impenetrable forest of thorns and suffocating darkness that frantically rapes your ears in one mighty swoop. It’s fast, despicable and downright creepy, and those vocals are just beyond the help of Strepsils; witchy cackles that screech for long, bone-chilling periods to a high level din of hissing percussion.

‘Ghosts Of The Mines’ simmers for seconds then just races like an old, possessed hag through the ancient woods in search of children to feast on. Yeah, yeah, there’s lots of fast and frightening black metal around, but this hideous entity just screams demonic tendency to the point of seizure. The glinting, archetype black metal still remains as a spine to this track with those recognisable Norwegian gleams, while Polish sorcerers Graveland also spring to mind with that unorthodox roughness and primordial destruction.

If one of the big black metal acts of the 90s had released this we’d still be masturbating over it today, and as ‘Under The Curse’ rises from the pristine white landscape like some fetid, antediluvian demon I can’t help but peer out the window into the black night and expect to see Blackwood and Proctor upon broomsticks casting shadows across the moon.

‘Under The Curse’ is the most enchanting and mesmerising of the three tracks. It still remains a wiry gauze of decrepit scowls and intrepid exploration, but only with doomier strains fuelled by those abysmal, remote shrieks from the backwoods. I couldn’t imagine such a cacophony performed live unless these guys stand out of sight in dense woods and sacrifice a goat at the after party.

If you want black metal that’s actually black, then it doesn’t get more harrowing or disturbing than this. Peasant is the epitome of permafrost.

Neil Arnold

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