After two EP’s, a demo and the ‘Elevenfold Tail’-debut album from 2022, the Mexican Black Metal outfit Nigrum was able to take things a step further with releasing their sophomore album through Germany’s leading underground label Iron Bonehead Productions. Yet, ‘Elevenfold Tail’ was a rather uneventful record that only mostly reminded of a less well-balanced Watain, so moving up to a new and bigger label might be a sign things have shifted into more exciting waters…
But, if I’d start with a conclusion of sorts, I can say that ‘Blood Worship Extremism’ is indeed a step up in terms of song writing and the overall sound/production, but the feeling remains basically unchanged. Still Nigrum sounds like Watain, but much less sophisticated and executed. With the progressed sound quality Nigrum more or less stands at the tipping point between the rougher (and best) early times of Watain and the more soulless and pointless current days of the Swedish Black Metal juggernaut.
Without the intention of sounding disrespectful towards the Mexican, basically everything that made old Watain so great is just more than one step less well executed on ‘Blood Worshop Extremism’. The somewhat creepy melodies of early Watain are basically completely absent, the furious riffs and drums feel untight and the vocals unconvincing. To make things even harder to enjoy, the record doesn’t feel very coherent, with sudden swings towards epic Heavy Metal-leads and melodies (‘Ineffable Empire’) or even some weird out of place Death Metal chords.
Constantly comparing the album to Watain might come across a bit easy and cheap, yet with the parallels being so evident it is impossible not to hear the similarities. But, as a whole this is a record that could please the lovers of Scandinavian Black Metal, with all of its melodies and dynamic turns and twists. Just, don’t expect anything you haven’t heard before or an album to change your life forever. Despite its clearly good intentions, ‘Blood Worship Extremism’ gets only a barely satisfactory score.
Iron Bonehead Productions
- Country: Germany
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Other
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube
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