Iron Bonehead Productions: Athanatos + Unaussprechlichen Kulten + Temple Desecration

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Iron Bonehead ProductionsReview by Jason Guest

Iron Bonehead Productions is a favourite amongst these ‘ere pages (click here for a list of our reviews). If you want to find out more about the label, you can pay a visit to their website, take a listen over at their Soundcloud page, or get up-to-date info on their Facebook page. Here we’ve got a few more releases being given the once-over. Read the lot or click the band names to go directly to their review:

  • From Chile’s Athanatos, we have the debut demo tape, Unholy Union
  • Also from Chile, Unaussprechlichen Kulten bring us their third album, Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath
  • And from Poland’s Temple Desecration comes their Iron Bonehead debut, Communion Perished.

 

Athanatos – Unholy Union (Tape)

Release date: 7 July 2014

We’ve had a few Chilean death metal bands from Iron Bonehead over this past year – Demonic Rage in particular standing out – but nothing up to the standard of this debut demo tape from Athanatos. The Unholy Union of Imperator on “Cunnilingus Goat vocals” (superb!) and axe and Hateaxes Command on “Cunnilingus Serpent drums” (marvellous!) have brought unto us Armageddon in just four Earth-obliterating tracks.

With the slow and the dragging colliding with the colossal and the crushing, vicious echo-laden barks sit atop an unending cavalcade of chaotic and apocalyptic destruction. Frenzied and furious, laden with death metal might and fuelled by black metal venom, each track is diabolically deranged. And after what they’ve just done to us, Athanatos have every right to close ‘Full Moon Rites Of Sabbat’ with maniacal laughter.

Athanatos – Unholy Union8 out of 10

Track listing:

  1. Unholy Union
  2. Reverse The Creation
  3. Per Vas Nefandum
  4. Full Moon Rites Of Sabbat

 

Unaussprechlichen Kulten – Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath

Release date: 14 July 2014

Another band from Chile, Unaussprechlichen Kulten’s third album – and first for six years – again turns to the Cthulhu mythos for inspiration. With the occult imagery carved into music and lyrics, it’s pretty easy to guess what to expect, but while both the unimaginatively-titled ‘Prologue’ and ‘Epilogie’ tick the “haunting and eerie” box and the remainder of the tracks tick the “ghoulish” and the “grunting death metal” boxes, there is a distinct quality to it that sets Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurathapart from that host of bands referred to as “Lovecraftian”.

The bookended structure of the album plots a coherent path, one of development that is recognisable in all of the tracks. With each track comes the stench of the eternal underworld, bringing with it demons incarnate in brutal and at times technical riffing and a possessed vocal. Time, rhythm, and tempo changes in abundance, the journey is a demanding one but not so demanding that it feels any less challenging than it should be. Atmospheric and archaic, the production can be a too dense at times, clouding some of the intricate guitar parts while dampening pummeling drum lines into dull thuds. But Chilean bands don’t do “clean”. They do uncompromisingly vicious death metal. And with occult powers at their behest, Unaussprechlichen Kulten do it very well. Worth your time.

GDOB2-30CH-001 (templ)_UKULTEN7.5 out of 10

Side A:

  1. Prologue
  2. The Hooded Baphomet Bleated
  3. La Recta Provincia
  4. Yogge-Sothothe
  5. Ceremony Of Belial

Side B:

  1. Kadath In The Cold Waste
  2. Nomen Mysticum
  3. Spirals Of Acrid Smoke
  4. Epilogie

 

Temple Desecration – Communion Perished

Release date: 27 June 2014

Poland’s Temple Desecration are… well, what can be said about this two-track slice of unmitigated blasphemous filth other than that it’s, well, unmitigated blasphemous filth? Who they are, no one seems to know (does it matter?), but what they have – thankfully – brought unto this mundane world with Communion Perished is a malicious blend of death, black, and doom wrapped in a cavernous production. Bookended by religious chants and the sounds of diabolical prayer, though the drums are almost obscured by its voluminous sound, the riffs are savage and abrasive, as are the inhuman vocals that permeate the two tracks’ dank, miserable, and tortured air. Its suitably cacophonous and dense atmosphere is compounded by the suitably fervid playing – clarity and technique are, of course, anathema – and the destructive weight of the music is colossal, and though while not ground-breaking, it’s solid enough to warrant anticipating great things from this mob.

Temple Desecration – Communion Perished7 out of 10

Track listing:

  1. Ghoul Prayer
  2. Apotheosis