ArsGoatia’s Hiding Amongst Humans doesn’t just attack; it looms like a monolith, crushing everything beneath a towering wall of Black/Death Metal. This is not scrappy chaos; it’s deliberate, oppressive force, the kind that feels carved from stone and soaked in ritualistic malice.
There’s an immediate parallel to Belphegor (noted B.R was a former member who just passed on, R.I.P to him) and Behemoth: not in imitation, but in scale and presence. ArsGoatia channel that same sense of grandeur: riffs that march like war hymns, drums that sound like ceremonial bombardment, and vocals that spit venom with commanding authority. It’s Black/Death Metal that feels architectural, built to dominate rather than just destroy.
Tracks like ‘Tongues Orifice Fire’ and ‘Slay Burn Immolate’ hammer forward with militant precision, while the slower passages, especially in ‘When Heresy Repeats Itself’, bring in that ritualistic weight, echoing the grand, almost liturgical darkness that bands like Behemoth perfected in their modern era. Meanwhile, the raw hostility and blasphemous undercurrent feel closer to Belphegor’s more savage side.
What elevates the album is its monolithic pacing. Even when it shifts tempo, it never loses that sense of mass: every riff feels heavy, every transition intentional. The production reinforces this: thick, suffocating, yet sharp enough to let each instrument strike with clarity. It’s not a murky underground haze; it’s a cathedral of sound collapsing in slow motion.
If there’s a weakness, it lies in cohesion: the album occasionally feels like a series of powerful slabs rather than one seamless structure. But each piece is so crushing on its own that the impact rarely fades. Hiding Amongst Humans stands as a monolithic Black/Death offering, channeling the commanding force of Belphegor and Behemoth while carving its own oppressive identity. Grand, crushing, and ritualistically charged; this album is Black/Death Metal built like a fortress.
