The shortest album released, until now, by this British extreme metal band. With only 10 tracks:
- The Road To…
- Obscene As Cancer
- The Reek Of Fear
- Forward!
- New Bethlehem/Mass Death Futures
- The Apocalypse Is About You!
- Vi Coactus
- Mother Of Satan
- The Horrid Strife
- Are We Fit For Glory Yet? (The War To End Nothing)
They keep the same recipe, black metal, industrial and grimcore, but mixed in a crazy album, but “crazy” at the full extent of the word. When analyzing an album from them is hard to pick the part you want to start with, voice, instruments, mixed sounds pumped in the songs. This being the main reason the band manages to stay fresh in a world were musicians keep repeating themselves from album to album. Yet, it’s no doubt an Anaal Nathrakh album. The songs are focused on war, and the violence and pain that it can cause. But this is not a violent, mindless expression of war, they often find there inspiration from different poets . “Forward!” is the songs that have made it to the top of Anaal Nathrakh best release. Chilling sounds send shivers down your spine. The lyrics add to that vibe, describing war during Christmas, a happy occasion mixed with the unavoidable death that is soon to come:
“It’ll all be over by Christmas”
The album has 2 parts, the first part is as brutal and mad as it can be and then gets to a more safe space, something I thought I will never write about this band. But they have grown a little. You have the beginning of the war and then slowly we are taken to the morbid silence of the death corpses laying on the cold ground. We are used to a conceptual vibe in every album from this group but this one has reached the top. It’s insanely brutal, and does little to no effort to hide the madness that war is. Some speculate that the inspiration for this album is World War One, this rumor is not confirmed by the band itself, but we can see why some may believe that. I also love the old classic black metal atmosphere that we find in “Mother Of Satan”, it’s a surprise since most songs from them are not easily categorized in just a single genre. I have to admit that after first listening the album I was a bit worried for Dave Hunt, this man pushes his vocals to the limit, I worry that he will not be able to create to many albums if he keeps this madness. I’m not a man of order, since I’m now going to approach the 5th song of the album after talking about “Mother Of Satan”, 8th song, but I am just mentioning the songs that have been stuck in my mind after listening the first time the album. (by now I’ve listen the album a million times and any particularities seem to be fused into the beauty of this full album, it’s hard not to see it as a continues journey, and not individual songs ). “New Bethlehem/Mass Death Futures” is a “symphonic” masterpiece. Symphonic in the idea of an extreme metal band, they bring such wonderful harmony to the craziness of war, this song took me back to the track, and video of Carach Angren “The Funerary Dirge of a Violinist, sure is not the same style of music, but war and symphonic music playing. The last song, “Are We Fit For Glory Yet? (The War To End Nothing)” fits the end of this album not only with his name but gives a painful patriotic feeling. The song is the end of war, the end were the heavy injured soldiers sing with the last breath the end of a pointless war. It sound like a funeral not a victory. No war can be won, only lost, lost because of the murder of all men.
