Infernal Stronghold
Godless Noise
8
US Black metal that isn’t trying to be at one with the forest or overly ambient and ambitious, Infernal Stronghold (formerly known as Stronghold) bring a Garage rock, punk fueled simplicity and intensity to the table on their second full length album.
Delivered with a feral, raw tone and a no nonsense 26-minute duration, Godless Noise is an apt title for this raucously enjoyable slab of primal, punk infused black thrash metal that isn’t usually my thing. But the band’s grungy, regular guy who works at Subway image and lack of spikes, corpse paint or bullshit strikes a chord with me. But for fans of Impaled Nazarene and Malveillance this thing is a must have.
The short (2-3 minute) tracks blaze by with a feedback drenched energy and ferocity that’s organic and real, but also with a barely there, almost grindcore sense of melody and prose, due to the punk influence. Drummer R.B.D (who also serves as the live drummer for fellow Pennsylvania black metal act Woe) is a chaotic vortex behind the kit as the guitars buzz with a live but rusty, grimy shrill tone that’s neither processed nor triggered but never sounds like bees in a tin can either. It’s like you are listening to the band performing in a basement and they are ripping your face off in person.
Tracks are hard to single out as the 26 minutes is almost a sheer barrage of blackened tremolo picked power chords but “Destruction of Life….Unworthy of Life,” “Crippling Blasphemous Persistance” and the latter stage of the album including “A Dog You Call God,” “Fuck Thou Shalt Culture,” “Snorting the Ruins of Sodom” and “Buried by Grime and Crust” are particularly gnarly. Only the brooding groove in the mid section of the title track offers any sort of respite from the…ahem…..Godless Noise.
