Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment

Has Fleshgod Apocalypse gone back in time and had a baby? I heard they have, and they’ve named it Anaal Nathrakh. I mean, let’s just ignore the fact that Anaal Nathrakh were around many moons before Fleshgod, and let that analogy sit… Ok, so this is only metaphorical, as Anaal Nathrakh are a British duet, but stylistically it’s a shift I might not have anticipated. 

This is, at least, for the first and title track, “Endarkenment”; the moment we reach “Thus, Always, To Tyrants”, it’s back to the sprawling wall of blast beats perforating tasteful noise. The sort of chaos we’re accustomed to has a strong presence amidst the melodic twists and turns that occasionally pop their head round the corner much like in the first track. You don’t even have to like it to be able to appreciate the versatility that’s shoved up your nose as soon as you hit that play button.

“The Age of Starlight Ends” boasts their diverse approach all the more, introducing a flavour of Trivium-esque harmonies in the chorus. As ever, the only backdrop suitable is the blast beats that characterise their sound (until an intense choral outro that leaves us slightly agape).

“Libidinous (a Pig with Cocks in its Eyes)” has a few djenty idioms, although if you’re not a fan of that, please try not to crucify me for noting it. I gotta admit, I’m impressed. Dare I say their older stuff, whilst gorgeously insane, perhaps did a lot of their own particular style very well, this album so far strays from that. No, it’s grown from that, evolving with the times as (in my humble opinion) the best bands should. I can’t say 2020 has had too many amazing moments, but this feels like it could be one of them. Anyway, enough waffle. I’m a bit of sucker for the melodic lead they dress the chorus with. What a name too, almost reminiscent of something I remember hearing about David Cameron a few years back, but let’s not get too political.

They’re going from strength to strength, returning somewhat to their original deathy sound from their earlier repertoire in “Beyond Words”. Complete with a few little breaks between sections, punctuating what might be otherwise a breathless wall of sound, they still introduce some more melodic fragments towards the end, rounding it off with their new-found flavour. They’ve not completely changed, keeping the old bits that are good, yet adding enough fresh nuance to be encapsulating.

“Feeding the Death Machine” is giving us melo-death vibes. Personally I’m slightly more akin to the atonality of rough, seductive noise, but they’re breaking that up well with this sort of track, even throwing in a tasty little solo. First they’re serving melody, then noise, then more melody, then more noise. I think they’ve structured the order of songs well in this way.

True to form, “Create Art, Though the World May Perish” is more noise, but it’s just so good. Elements still of melo-death, sure, but the melodies this time are a bit more angular and nasty - that is until the solo, which almost feels like a nod to the jolly power metal fellas that are always somewhere at the bar nodding away. That bridge though, can we just hear that again? It’s short, loud, and heavily dissonant. Probably for the best that it’s brief, but it adds that extra spice to keep my keen interest. Love those pig squeals we hear later on too, just before a little black metal section that I heard a lot of in their older material. It’s part of what made me love them back then, so I’m ready to welcome it back with open arms.

Can we take a moment before we talk about “Singularity”? I need a minute. The chord progression in the chorus, married with the dissonant melodies in the verse made me eargasm a little bit. Whoops. All joking aside, it’s pretty epic, almost verging on cliché, yet because it’s only present in that section alone it’s just enough not to be. A welcome break from the atonality that surrounds it, shrouding what might be a joyful piece in a darker, yet familiar shadow.

So “Punish Them” immediately throws this to the floor and stamps on its face. That being said, the chorus is quite powerful, rich with melodic content. Do we hear a flash of neoclassicism in the riff bridging the verse and chorus too? I wonder if, by this point in the album, there could be even more stylistic variation as we return to a power metalish style melody in the chorus, but they have demonstrated that ability across the rest of album with ample conviction enough to satisfy. Besides, the strong, black metal-esque, opening phrase does little to condemn it. Certainly straying from the quasi operatic style of the first track with its more angular melodic content, yet as with the other tracks balancing a melodic chorus with an amelodic verse. Those vocals scream to the depths of my soul too, it almost makes me want to passionately kick someone in the face. I’ll imagine it’s Trump, just so no one gets offended.

Do you remember that quasi operatic style I was talking about in reference to the opening track? It’s made a comeback in “Requiem”. I mean, they’ve even called it requiem, how much more neoclassical can you get? I wouldn’t say that it’s the first thing I would point someone to if they wanted to get into neoclassical death metal, but it’s as good as any of the other bands that have pioneered the genre. If there’s something I find a little boring about other bands that take neoclassicism as such a heavy stylistic influence, it’s that there’s never any dynamics (or not enough of them) and there’s not a massive amount of structural variation. I mean, you kinda expect to hear one riff, tailed off by another riff, interspersed with miniature, somewhat aggressive, piano sonatas which I’ve always felt ever so slightly lack the nuance of the old classical style. I mean sure, if you’re introducing it to the idioms of modern metal, you probably want everything to be loud and aggressive, but to me that demonstrates a lack of nuance rather than stylistic integrity. But hey, I’ll stop being pedantic.

The point is, Anaal Nathrakh don’t do this - they intersperse these (instrumentally) operatic moments with interjections of their own, tailored sound. That actually works better than trying to rip off the instrumentation of music that’s now a few centuries old. I mean I love that music, but it’s a few centuries old. Let’s reinvent rather than rip it off. Maybe I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent, but either way there’s a lot to talk about with Anaal Nathrakh’s newest release. I’ll even forgive the fade out (which is a pretty lazy way of finishing any song). However, I think this might be one of those rare moments that it’s acceptable, sort of like when you get a deer hop out in front of your car, but you can’t be mad at it because you rarely see them. Fade outs aren’t as rare as that, but convincing ones are. I can’t bring myself to count that as a bad point, so well done for convincing me that you can actually use them tastefully. Not to mention the fact that they quote Verdi’s Requiem towards the beginning of the track - one of the most famous requiems ever written (trust me, you’d know it if you heard it). That alone, for me, makes “Requiem” a miniature masterpiece.

They’ve hit my sweet spot, so I think this album’s going to be one I remember from this gloomy bastard of a year. Thanks guys, you’ve made some solid sounds. You can have a whopping 9/10, or maybe a 6/7.

JR