ANAAL NATHRAKH - Desideratum
November 3, 2014, 9 years ago
(Metal Blade Records)
The title of Anaal Nathrakh's 2003 EP, When Fire Rains Down From The Sky Mankind Will Reap As It Has Sown, is an eminently apt description of this Birmingham dystopia, as Anaal Nathrakh is devastating in every hyperbolic sense of that word. Though the band's songwriting reached its zenith on the enormity that is 2009's In The Constellation Of The Black Widow, Anaal Nathrakh has always been a jagged edge proposition and that continues on Desideratum, the group's Metal Blade debut. Desideratum is notable in the sense that it reflects the ambition of In The Constellation Of The Black Widow, but reincorporates several of the electronic elements that were apparent during the group's earlier works. Though the Sunlight Studio/Stockholm Death guitar tones have been harnessed slightly to make room for the electronic flourishes, Desideratum's absolute disgust with humanity has (thankfully?) not wavered. Desideratum is yet another meticulous and invigorating effort from Anaal Nathrakh, one that cements this collective's legacy of ruin, desecration and no redemption, ever (witness: "The One Thing Needful", "Idol" and "Sub Specie Aeterni").
