Anaal Nathrakh
In the Constellation of The Black Widow

THE REVIEW

Finally. After over three years of metal and listening to four or five albums a day, my darkest and most imaginative musical perversions come to life. That is the union of the most extreme genres par excellence, black metal and grindcore. I haven't (not yet, anyway) listened to other albums by Anaal Nathrakh, but this "In The Constellation Of The Black Widow" is, for me, the proverbial bolt from the blue, an album that aims to become a reference point for my future listening. After the first track, I unknowingly exclaimed, "Christ, so something like this really exists!" 

The album in question, even from the cover (a painting by Gustav Doré), expresses the catacomb-like mood we are about to face, but in reality, it is much more than black/grind. Practically every facet of extreme metal is present here: the noises and filtered voices that are so reminiscent of industrial - although here we are more in the realm of Aborym - set the stage, a decadent doom riff almost serves as a ritual introduction, the album title is whispered... The hell begins. Because all demons are here on Earth, particularly two, the members of this group, who, if you see them, don't even remotely seem to have anything to do with the metal scene. I don't know how much it is appropriate in this case, but once again, the habit does not make the monk.

The title track continues with black outbursts and screams that refer to those murderous monsters of our times called Pig Destroyer. Incredibly perfect, the epic clean vocals intervention draws its strength from the immense contrast with the instrumental section. The journey continues along these lines, with shorter pieces focused on blast beats and others where the death components in the riffing and the grind in the growls manage to destroy everything. Vaguely "carcassian" "The Unbearable Filth", while "So Be It" is fast and impactful swedeath, as is the start of "Satanarchist", truth be told, I consider these last two the least successful of the batch, but it could be due to my age-old aversion to the genre. The impeccably gray and modern production ensures that the album, while sounding in a certain grind way, does not fall into chaos and manages to highlight thrash nuances here and there.

At this point, it might be superfluous to say that it is an album TO HAVE by a more unique than rare group. A note for the purist trve black norsk something: yes, there's a drum machine here, but if I hadn't mentioned it, I don't think you would have noticed.