
Written by Carcassbomb
- Black Pestilence
- Hail The Flesh
- Black/Thrash/Punk
- Alberta, Canada
- May 1st, 2020
- 8/10
A tasty morsel of ye ol’ black metal and something newer, something wilder. I don’t even mean modern, there’s just a lot of elements that deviate from the standard melodic and long winded frameworks that are popular right now with genres like post black making a huge push forward. This has punk and heavy metal vibes in it, it’s interesting because it’s easily beer drinking kind of metal but it’s also more sophisticated musically than that descriptor does justice. It’s a damn good time. Revel in the flesh!

Oh boy, that’s going to be a fun cover to post to social media. Cartoony skulls and nudity embraced in a VERY one sided orgy is exactly what you’d expect from the sound. I can just imagine the conversation with the artist now where the band asked for this very specifically and when they received it said “This is perfect, this is the highest art”. In essence I think they’re doing exactly what they want to do every step of the way.
The album themes deal with hell and satanism which does not surprise considering the flesh aspect of the album. Something I consider one of the only good parts of Satanism, in the LeVay sense. I kinda respect the highly spiritual blood drinkers more for their commitment to symbols and sacrifice. In the lyrics you will see a lot of the symbols and characters that populate the general satanic landscape – they are quite well written which is a part of the sophistication I mentioned. There’s a lot of purpose and good storytelling in there. TAKE BACK REALITY.
Black Pestilence: Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook / Instagram
You’ll hear a surprising variety of riffs and licks, the guitar seem to carry the bulk of this often transferring between black metal staples, thrash metal and punk. It even gets surfy at moments. The bass is consistently great and has no problem both emphasising the lead as well as carrying tunes of their own. This is essential to any trio, you have to have a good bass player. Here the bassist is also the vocalist so naturally he’s in sync with that rhythm on both.
I listened a bunch of times to try and pinpoint some flaws or moments that weren’t hitting but I had a very hard time doing that. I also didn’t get struck by this release like a lot of 10s I’ve given, all I can do to justify the 8 is that the album FEELS like an 8/10. I got 80% enjoyment from this release.
Black Pestilence is also featured in my new 2020 black metal playlist
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