Finnish death / black metal outfit Chthonian's origins date back to 1998 when bassist Matias Lillmans hooked up with drummer Markus Rosenberg. A four track tape was recorded before their project eventually went into a dormant state. Both Lillmans and Rosenberg continued to play together, along with Jens Frilund (guitar), in a range of different sounding bands before eventually settling on the death / black metal genre in 2005. They returned to the older material and combined it with newer tracks and in 2006 their first demo under the Chthonian moniker was born. Based on the strength of this demo the band was signed to Woodcut Records which has issued their first full length album Of Beatings And The Silence In Between.
Comprised of eight tracks and clocking in at just over thirty minutes Beatings is a punishing and relentless barrage of aggression that once it grabs hold of the listener offers little or no respite. What you get here is the typical standard death metal fare with ominous black metal overtones, so expect a fair dose of blast beats, rapid fire tempos and a shitload of heavy, distorted riffs. The band does change gears frequently enough within each song over the course of this disc. However, that being said I think they could have experimented a bit more to make things even more interesting and in the end a little less one dimensional. If they had combined the violent aggression with the odd atmospheric passage then I think Beatings potentially could have been an even more impressive and far more potent opening statement. The bottom line though is this trio does demonstrate a good deal of promise and it will be interesting to see if they decide to expand the parameters of their sound, albeit ever so slightly, on future releases to take things to the next level.
Track Listing
1 III
2) Thirteen
3) Sanguine Sadism
4) Larvae, Nymph, Decay
5) Weep Human, Weep
6) That'll Teach You
7) Syringes And Chemicals
8) Of Beatings And The Silence In Between
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