Heresiarch – Death Ordinance (Dark Descent Records. 2017).
Tyranny reigns eternal, as Heresiarch deliver audio annihilation on their full-length. Long awaited, this is a truly devastating masterwork of Black/Death chaos. The first song, Consecrating Fire, begins with a tense introduction before crushing riffs come crashing down. It is a devastating number, that starts off with slower riffs imbued with a power and majesty that conjures up the mental vista of a mighty warrior wandering among the corpses on the battlefield. When the martial drumming kicks in around two thirds of the way into the song, it just adds to the sense of tyrannical glory. When Storming upon Knaves comes crashing forth, you are plunged into a relentless assault of riffs and pounding drums that sounds like the audial embodiment of warfare. Apocalyptic and merciless, the drums hammer away, and guitar leads shriek like banshees as the tanks crush all in their path. The mental vistas that are painted by the music are of vicious, inhuman combat in Hellish landscapes torn apart by artillery and drenched in blood. This is a vicious, rabid assault on the mind and is the musical equivalent to being shoved into the meatgrinder of some bestial war. It is absolutely killer. There is no softening of the assault, even in slower, doomier songs such as The Yoke, which is imbued with a sense of dread and the terrifying magnificence of Absolute Power. Dictatorial, it commands the spirit and leaves one struck with a sense of awe at the authoritarian nature of the music. The concluding song of the album, Desert of Ash, is a monstrous song that commands your attention. Crushing, slower riffs and pounding drums evoke the feeling of desolation, as if one is standing in the ruins of a nuclear wasteland. There is no life, only Death reigns with supreme might in the post-Apocalyptic landscape summoned by the music. The melody played around the six-minute mark feels full of sorrow and to be grieving, which just adds to the atmosphere. It captures perfectly the feeling of loss and devastation and fittingly concludes the Hellish ride through an Apocalyptic conflagration that is the album. With regards to production, this is mastered perfectly, and every element is perfectly balanced to create an absolutely devastating and relentless assault that leaves one hungry for more. A killer album by a deadly band, Heresiarch have shown that they are one of the leading Black/Death Metal bands with this vicious assault.
9/10.
SADISTIC SCREAMS 