According to Michael Everson’s transcription, Anaal Nathrakh means “serpent’s breath” and the name comes from Merlin’s Charm of Making in John Boorman’s 1981 film “Excalibur”. The British extreme metal band was formed in 1999 and they fuse black metal, grindcore, death metal and industrial music. “Passion” is their eight studio album and the new collection of ten songs are lead us through the same dark, contorted world made of forged guitars, raw vocals, crushing tempos and extreme noises, but Anaal Nathrakh managed to bring into this extreme butchery interesting harmonies and melodies, inspired colors and shady sounds.
All of Anaal Nathrakh’s music is written, recorded and produced by Mick Kenney aka Irrumator, ex-Frost, ex-Mistress, ex-Professor Fate, and still also member of the bands Fukpig and Sorrows, and he plays all the instruments: guitars, bass, drums, drum programming, and take care of the production as well. Dave Hunt (aka V.I.T.R.I.O.L.) from Benediction and Mistress fill up the vocal duties. On stage they are joined by Ventnor (Nog) – guitar, Misery (Paul Kenney) (Mistress, Fukpig) – bass and St. Evil (Steve Powell) (Theoktony) – drums, but in the past also featured Nicholas Barker (ex-Cradle of Filth, ex-Dimmu Borgir), Shane Embury (Napalm Death, Lock Up, Venomous Concept, Unseen Terror, Brujeria) and Danny Herrera (Napalm Death).
“Passion” is intense and extremely brutal, but still full of interesting turns, breaks, musical constructions and solutions, it’s a modern and colorful black metal album, complex, technical constructions and killer riffs, unexpected and inspired solutions are make this album exciting. I’m not really into black metal, but there are a few absolutely creative and interesting products and Anaal Nathrakh it’s definitely one of them. While 99.9% of the actual so-called “alternative” metal acts makes me puke, “Passion” came almost like a salvation.
