Haatstrijd like to do things backwards. Before delivering their debut full-length proper – ‘Cacodaemony’ – the demonic Dutchmen had already unleashed a compilation album, a live album, a split and an EP as well as a couple of demos. Convention is just a state of mind.
Tastefully packaged in sumptuous blacks and greys, ‘Cacodaemony’ hammers out BM of the raw and fast-ish variety. Nachtvorst’s belligerent bellows bleed from the speakers, while Hellchrist Xul’s manic swirling/buzzing six-string creates a fairly standard b(l)ackdrop. Rhythm (if you could call it such) is provided by Beelzebub-worshipping bassist Soturno and Hellchrist’s Funeral Winds acolyte Balgradon Xul (session drummer).
The soot on display is epileptic. Rawer than a dead fish in a toilet and with all the production value of a boot in the bollocks (dull but deadly), Haatstrijd prove that true evil has gripped Holland. The output is bleak, menacing, uncompromising, horrible and straightforward in an old school way. A slight punk vibe enhances proceedings and there’s no chance of lethargy, boredom or longing thoughts of Jehovah setting in as it’s all over in half-an-hour. The only demand this CD will place on you is to give it another spin…
Recommended to anyone who swears by Gorgoroth and/or isn’t a stickler for originality, this is a solid-as-lead album that testifies to the awesome strength in depth of the underground. No beauty, no interludes, no acoustics, no pretty atmospheric passages, no keys; just extreme dark aggression in praise of the horned defiler. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Me kill, me eat, me fuck… The devil’s got all the best tunes and Sadolust have done it again. (GeraldS)
