Barcelona is a city associated with among other things, beautiful beaches, the works of Antoni Gaudi and one of the world’s most famous football teams. Elsewhere in the Catalan capital however is a band making a noise for themselves, in the dark underground of the local music scene.
Atrexial formed as a side project by guitarist/vocalist Naga S Maelstrom, currently from another Barcelona death metal band, Human Carnage. While his main band are even more extreme, here Maelstrom has a chance to experiment with other ideas.
Fellow guitarist Louen was then brought onboard to take up lead, along with drummer Labelua on those important double bass pedals and soon enough Arexial were born.
With their debut album Souverain the black and death metal of Atrexial comes at you like a bull in a bull fight. There’s only one survivor and I’m pleased to report it’s not the matador holding a red cape.
It’s a hard call whether this is death metal or influenced by more sinister black metal. To the untrained ear both genres can be fairly similar, but Atrexial should be filed somewhere between the two. Evil vocals combined with hard edged guitar solos, fast paced drums, with plenty of atmospherics and the odd sample thrown in for good measure.
While the album gets off to a good start, its “Under The Scourge Of Lamashtu” where the band really comes out of the shadows. The high tempo of the track, the vocal delivery and the shredding through every note on the solo gives “Under the Scourge…” all you could ask for.
This is followed by “Catharsis Through Torment”, a track pre-fixed with a clip from the Hellraiser trilogy. Horror films are of course widely used in rock music and while the Pinhead character turns up more than once throughout Souverain, the samples are a well-placed addition.
Then there’s the unexpected interlude of “Ascension”, it’s a beautiful piece of piano work. The instrumental is somewhat of a pleasant surprise, it slows the album down enough to stop and reflect. Not for too long though, for “Shadows of the Nephlim Throne” does its best to damage your hearing once more.
The outcome, Atrexial have an impressive release and one which shows there’s more to death metal than corpse paint and satanic lyrics. Although that said, here at Mr Teeth Reviews we do love that side of things too.
Atrexial “Souverain” is out now via Godz Ov War Productions
