Deltacron. No it isn’t the name bestowed to your next Transformer overlord but to a hybrid of two strains of virulency already running afoul in the streets. Y’all should read the news. But what do I care if you do or don’t – for all you may know Deltacron is the latest technical death metal expulsion from Australia or somewhere wherever the style is a hotbed for. Not according to Metal Archives anyway… Australian metalheads better get on it! Regardless, did I not say I’d be back before the next plague? I have kept my end of the bargain and will, in this volume of Hellbound Sounds anyway, expose what the birth of 2022 offeredd up on a shiny silver platter.
Defiant was the unholy sacrilege seeping from the deathknell of 2021, and in lieu of a brighter future 2022 played its hand and dealt a deafening blow courtesy of Furis Ignis, Grieve, Nullification, Verbum, and Wolfbastard.
Kingdoms to Hovel is every bit the primitive blitzkrieg your fragile cranial matter craves after another Sisyphean day of turning the cogs in the broken world-machine – befitting given how Nullification‘s feral debut serves as the perfect soundtrack to the alien invasion they so gleefully prophesise. An unholy brotherhood within the Filipino metal community, these four horsemen may preach a formulaic barbarism within this rotten incarnation of their prowess but they wreak havoc with the mastery of all those who cleaved the path of bodies before them; the likes of ‘Inside the Surreal’ and ‘I, Nullifier’ reduce brains to mincemeat with effortless ease, ensuring whatever organic matter is left once the extraterrestrials move on to their next world caves in to ultimate decay.
Haunting, collosal, and downright fucking majestic – the sheer scope of Decapitate the Aging World traverses so far beyond human comprehension it leaves whole societies of dumbfounded faces wherever it traverses. Every bit as ethereal as it is unrelenting Furis Ignis‘ debut descends as an ancient dragon from high atop frozen peaks, enveloping the world in a primordial twilight not seen for aeons. This is black metal at its most incandescent: with its claws clasped tightly around the throat, penetrating, it speaks arcane wisdoms in an archaic tongue, the threat of its release and the plunge towards certain death forever present as we dangle from the precipice; every twist and turn of this record is jam-packed with the sinister thrills this genre was once known for ladies and gentlemen, so take heed!
If you thought we at Hellbound Sounds would abandon you for exuberant black metal extravagance then think again because Wolfbastard are gonna kick that shit grin clear off your face! A sleaze-addled public orgy of cheap booze, cheaper sex and bare-knuckled violence that would make even Frank Gallagher say “no”, Hammer the Bastards is the third full bender for these depraved reprobates who revel in plundering the moral compass of everybody in their vicinity. For a full thirty minutes these cretinous bastards drag you through every glass-infested alleway of Manchester by the skin of your teeth, shower you in piss and vinegar from god only knows where, all the while chugging White Lightning by the gallon. It is a foul, insalubrious affair you might remember very little of the next day but will leave you gaggin’ for more next weekend. Fuckin’ ‘ave it!!
You don’t need scientists who have spent the last fifty or so years understanding our nefarious impact on the environment telling you climate change is indeed real, that the earth is warming at an alarming rate and that we’re steadfastly approaching the point of no return; all you need is Grieve‘s one and only LP Funeral. So unprecendented is this period of thawing a relic from the 90s has resurfaced to lay siege on weaponised religion and a wayward world detached from the old ways. Except it isn’t. It was recorded last summer, came out this year, and now our lives are a disappointing lie. So easily fooled were we by the unrelenting and savage cold billowing throughout this record and its blasphemously mesmerising production, so easily taken in under the sign of its cross the bullet belts and corpsepaint spontaneously manifested on our bodies. Or, y’know, we allTh just fell under the spell of this gloriously grim swansong.
The descent into grimness doesn’t stop with sinister Finnish black metal of the highest order but instead resides somewhere deep below the mantle of this destitute rock we call home. Channeling its horrors through Chilean vessels Verbum the harrowing prescience of an untimely doom chimes through every breath of Exhortation to the Impure, a record so intune with chasmic dread it ought to come with its own warning label, pulsing and reverberating underneath our feet waiting for the prime moment to swallow us whole. For almost 40 minutes it leaves you teetering on the edge, teasing with gut-churning riffs and menacing foreboding, breathing deeply with cavernous lungs verging ever closer to a climax that may or may not come. It is this nerve-shredding anticipation which makes Exhortation such a harrowing ordeal, one which refuses to leave your subconscious until the moment the ground beneath you ultimately caves in….
In a world devoid of divinity, only the human remains. Or something to that affect. God doesn’t live here anymore, he’s grown weary of your superficial faith, he’s turned a deaf ear on your lip-service prayers. He has abandoned you. Yeah well who cares when music like this runs rampant through the streets! That is also two references in one so a bargain for your buck has been had. Until next time, don’t let the bastards grind you down.
The Motorfuzzin' Ibex 
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