Terminus Episode 108 - Ateiggär, Oppressive Descent

Gentlemen... behold! A new lean and mean episode of Terminus has arrived now that The Black Metal Guy has returned from Parts Unknown, fattened on the riches of distant lands. What better way to celebrate than with two down-the-line black metal records? We can have a little shrieking, just as a treat.

First up is Ateiggär from the Helvetic Underground Committee, a group of Swiss artists we've been following on the show for some time now. Ateiggär reaches back to late 90s and early 00s Scandinavian black metal like Kvist and Old Man's Child for its riffing style but adds in the tasteful theatrics of synth, sample, and clean vocal for spice. The aggregate effect is something like Rotting Christ by way of the frozen north, delivering on a promise of epic and ancient tones well at home in that era's more obscure circles.

Following is the return of Oppressive Descent whose 2020 record ended up on TBMG's album of the year list- does the new one stack up? Most certainly. What follows is well within the project's established wheelhouse but distilled and refined in exceptional fashion. This band's moment to moment riffcraft is nearly unmatched in high-flying (and skull-crushing) consistency, and the reduction of the number of influences at play has only sharpened its attack. Who would have guessed that from Portland would emerge the year's best French black metal record?

0:00:00 - Intro

0:04:49 - Ateiggär - Tyrannemord (Eisenwald)

0:46:12 - Interlude - 122 Stab Wounds - “Hunting Humans” fr. The Deity of Perversion (Head Not Found, 1996)

0:50:25 - Oppressive Descent - Spite is My Scepter, Blood is My Crown (Inferna Profundus Records)

1:40:01 - Outro - Chemin de Haine - “Le Royaume Maudit” fr. Hobo of Aramaic Tongues/Le Royaume Maudit (Painiac Records, 2003)

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