ARCHGOAT: "Heavenly Vulva (Christ's Last Rites)"

Five years back, the Finnish underground black metal scene greeted the arrival of Whore of Bethlehem with bold, superlative words, and not without a reason. One of the country's oldest black metal groups were back and the album crushed the hell out of everything. It was nothing new but still utterly dark and ass-kicking fusion of murky death and black metal, similar to e.g. Beherit. A few years later, The Light-Devouring Darkness saw its release and it was about as hellish as its predecessor. Keeping this in mind, it was no surprise that I've waited for Heavenly Vulva (Christ's Last Rites), their new EP, with great anticipation. Now that I've finally confronted this beast, I can't say I'm disappointed at all.

The paradigm in which Archgoat still plays its bestial filth, and has done so for the past twenty years or so, hasn't disappeared anywhere on Heavenly Vulva. A familiar introduction opens up the EP, and then ”Blessed Vulva” gets into the real meat: a lot of blast beat variations pummel amidst low-tuned guitar riffs and the vocalist grunts indecipherable blasphemy, and soon after the tempo drops into slow, atmospheric menace that is crowned with eerie, epic keyboard mats. Similar patterns are explored in the follow-ups ”Goddess of the Abyss of Graves” and ”Penetrator of the Second Temple” of which the latter incorporates some sweet, higher-pitched guitar violence. ”Day of Clouds” belong my favourities of the EP – you just can't go wrong with those judgement bell accents that have appeared on earlier recordings already. ”Passage to Millenial Darkness” is probably the harshest and swiftest piece of the bunch, a fine ending for the record.

In case you're thinking that you've had your share of Archgoatian style already and there's no need for any more of the same, Heavenly Vulva (Christ's Last Rites) might be an unnecessary purchase. But for a fanboy like me, and for those that in general have an interest in uncompromising bestial black / death metal, this EP is golden. It doesn't reach the level of the full-lengths, but is a well done snack of 16 minutes from one of the country's elite groups. Here's to hoping that another full album will soon surface as well.

4 / 5