Nyogthaeblisz – Abrahamic Godhead Besieged By Adversarial Usurpation

Black metal, since its beginnings, has never been considered the music genre for the weak minded. It is supposed to be brutal, offensive and just plain evil. Since nowdays most people get offended by literally everything, music that has nothing to do with anything that could be called Metal, let alone Black Metal, a lot of things fall into the Black Metal genre, yet has nothing to do there.

Nyogthaeblisz are a trio from Texas who have been making internet headlines due to the fact their shows have been cancelled so many times, mostly because people misunderstood their message and because today’s norm is to get offended by literally everything. The ones of you who are not familiar with their music, this band plays a particularly nasty and bestial combination old Black and Death metal, spiced up with harsh noise and elements of grind (you know, all the nasty things fans of the underground Black / Death metal seem to love), with lyrics based around chaos and hatred towards Abrahamic religions. The band started making their way in 2002 and released several EPs, splits and demos before releasing their debut full length “Abrahamic Godhead Besieged by Adversarial Usurpation” at the end of 2019.

The album starts out with sound not completely different from harsh noise intersected by alien messages translated into some sort of distorted human speech and it takes a good two minutes (just enough time for people to get the idea this is how it’s going to sound) before the ridiculously punishing drums start drilling directly into the listeners brain. The drums are quickly followed by heavily distorted guitars which set the tone of the War Metal (as in Black Witchery and Revenge) abrasiveness and the furious velocity and rawness of grindcore for the rest of the record. There is just enough harsh noise and power electronics added to make this already violent recording even more attacking, but clearly not enough for the album to cross over into noise territory. The demonic growls are occasionally cut by classic Black Metal shrieking and the combination of both builds up the inhuman, suffocating, unpleasant atmosphere of the album.

Expectations for this album were huge and even though there are minor flaws found on it, the final product fulfilled them. Since this was one of the final releases of 2019, the year certainly went out with a huge bang! This could be considered one of the milestones in the evolution of Black /Death Metal and the understanding of underground extreme metal. The rest is left to the listeners. While a certain amount will instantly call it a classic, the vast majority will just call it unnecessary noise. (Black Mary)