From the land of 3 crowns come Vholdghast. See them on the cover? Anyway, what happens when some members of modern brutal death metal bands Soreption, Syn:drom and Volturyon decide to start a band? Well, they decided to release a black/death metal album. They formed back in 2002, but due to some shapeshifting and bad luck (production-wise), it was February 2015 when their debut full-length album was available for us metalheads.

While going for their "own" kind of sound, Vholdghast have created an alloy, that sounds familiar. But at least for me, it sounds also pretty cosy at that. They still do have that modern death metal element to them, reminding of their label and countrymates Diabolical. However, they also have some The Project Hate MCMXCIX influence. These two things make Vholdghast relatively evil and grandiloquent, plus industrialized. Hard-hitting riffs sometimes remind me of Hypocrisy. These are the Swedish bits I hear on this one. Swiss alchemists Samael must be mentioned next, because more vigorous tones from them have impacted Vholdghast's sound. Then Norwegian Susperia, whose early black/thrash might well have been an influence here.

The guitars consist of aforementioned hard-hitting, hacking riffs and tremolo playing, and can be simplistic, to-the-point, or more technicality-driven. Lead guitar bits reek of evil, more or less, but Mid-Eastern melodies (Melechesh, any one?) and, generally, rather morbid stuff, too. The extra atmosphere is added with varying use of keyboards and sound effects. It starts with industrial noises, but there's also loud synthesizer mat sounds, and again, some choirs stuff. The bass guitar and the drums provide a sturdy backbone. The kick drums sound a bit too triggered, and therefore kind of machiney.

The vocals are nasty all around. They're more black metal like than death metal, even though there are some potent growling heard. The black metal ones remind me of Nagash on the first Covenant albums, and Athera of Susperia. The lyrical themes? I don't know more than you, when you've read the song titles! The lyrics aren't printed. The cover art is bland, so stick to the music.

About the music itself again. The songwriting is pretty simplistic, if not on low punk rock level. The band can conjure some memorable things over the course of 33 minutes of the album's duration, but not enough to make the album something exceptional. It gets somewhat generic on many occasions. I cannot call it boring, bland or utter crap at any point, but more like okay, good and ball-crushing! Anyway, it seems like we've arrived at the end of the review already. Well, the album itself isn't that long. Hey, one final comment: The closer is such a bloody good song, that the score is...

Rating: 6½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
04/08/2015 18:36