The threat of cosmic annihilation is something that the underground has been intimately familiar with for years now. There are many instances throughout each genre that offers a different take on what it means to have death come from beyond the stars be it in the form of a simple cataclysm where the planet itself is brought to ruin, interstellar conquest amongst warring alien civilizations, or Lovecraftian wretches bent on expanding madness across the realms. Black metal is far from a stranger to those concepts, but there's always room for aggressive expansion for those that know how to tackle such a concept. Taking its past collective experience into a terrifyingly effective new direction, Thanatotherion more than lives up to reputation of cosmic insanity in the underground.
There's something about some cosmic mass of insanity that tends to gear more towards material that's slow, lurching, and massive in virtually every regard to ensure that the listener is really given the sheer scale of what's going on, but there is another way. Taking a more thrash-leaning sound and offering flavors of extreme madness whilst your blood instantly comes to a boil and your brains turned into incomprehensible splatter, Thanatotherion shows us what it means to make interstellar horror a process that is as harrowing as it is a spectacle for the senses. What we see within "Alienation Manifesto" is the complete rejection of human flesh as Thanatotherion's brand of black-thrash seeks to envelope all of creation in an unlife the likes of which we have never seen before, but perhaps it would be an objectively better reality given that it would be finally rid of the human stench. Compounded by riffs and unyielding madness that stands as the single-most common theme in the whole of "Alienation Manifesto", the debut from Thanatotherion is no less than immensely disturbing while always the height of evisceration. Where many others think that eldritch horrors come in the form of the slow and lumbering, Thanatotherion shows us how it's done with all speed and more than enough fire to scorch any who come into contact with its all-encompassing distaste for life as we know it.
We are absolutely spoiled with plenty of acts of all different kinds that embrace different breeds of insanity with nothing on the table, and the otherworldly splendor just keeps on coming so long as we have bands like Thanatotherion coming out of the woodwork to rend what little we know of this feeble reality. More than enough thrash to burst your very blood from underneath your skin and more than enough black metal with all the blasphemy at play, "Alienation Manifesto" is a bold entry into eldritch madness of a kind that we simply need more of.
"Alienation Manifesto" releases on June 7th via I, Voidhanger Records!
LISTEN to an advanced track from "Alienation Manifesto" on Bandcamp here, or via YouTube below.
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