Bahimiron
Southern Nihilizm
6.7
I was taken aback by the track title "Halo of Fliez" (spelled correctly), because I thought perhaps Three Six Mafia had made a new track. How wrong I was. How horribly, horribly wrong I was.
Houston's Bahimiron might not be able to spell for dick, but even I can't deny the ungods when a vicious little firebrand like Southern Nihilizm hits my stereo. I mean, I know the Moribund Cult folks have a thing for the black metal scene (and by "have a thing for," I mean "own"), but this year they've really outdone themselves. Countless skull goblets should be raised to their unwaveringly great black metal art.
Anyways, Bahimiron have a pretty solid sound: tons of echo on the vocals, nonexistent bass, high treble guitars, and punchy drums. I mention the echoed vocals because, well...where was this recorded, anyways? It sounds like they did the vocal session through a drain pipe. Maybe they recorded the vocals in one of those vacuum tube rooms I see every once in a while on the Discovery channel. At any rate, it's ghoulish sounding, which is probably what Bahimiron was aiming for, and it fits the music pretty well.
Some of the riffs get old really quick, like, say, the first half of the title track, but then some are just downright awesome, like, say, the second half of the title track. Other tracks have that quality of, "you know, I might've heard that somewhere before, but I can't imagine where," but the thing is, those tracks are the best ones. That's right, folks. What could be percieved as the least inventive songs on Southern Nihilizm are probably the best of the bunch. But it's all in the way it's arranged that makes it interesting. The aformentioned "Halo of Fliez" is my current favorite because it blends a deliciously blasphemous sounding collection of riffs into a malevolent mixture of speed and impending death.
Bahimiron isn't out to reinvent the wheel, bless their little Southern black hearts.
