Teitanblood- Purging TonguesSlithering from the bottomless pits of Hades, Purging Tongues is the sound of corruption itself. Busy, blasphemous and relentless, Teitanblood have adopted a take-no-prisoners approach to songwriting with their newest EP, the bands first new material since their brilliant Seven Chalices LP from 2009. Seven Chalices established these Spaniards as one of front-runners in Occult-themed Black/Death Metal, but it really doesn't compare to Purging Tongues in terms of sheer misanthropy. This EP flat out hates your guts, and makes no concessions.
A single track spanning fifteen minutes, Purging Tongues sees an already chaotic and atmospheric band devolve into pure chaos noise and Satanic incantation. The music flows like sacrificial blood down a slopping altar, moving from unhinged noise and devilish chanting to bursts of Blasphemy-meets-Incantation grinding and back again, never giving the listener one second to even comprehend the machinations at work. None of the individual elements are particularly surprising or new for Teitanblood: Seven Chalices featured all the same insane sounds. It's the density of the composition that makes Purging Tongues that much more inhuman.
This density is also as much a curse as a blessing. Purging Tongues has Teitanblood entering Portal territory here, for better or worse. Following individual song elements becomes very difficult in this blistering haze, and it's pretty much impossible to pick out any individual riffs or sections as highlights. Purging Tongues must be taken as a whole or not at all, and at times the whole affair feels over-wrought and directionless. It doesn't help that the production is so uneven: the bass, drums and vocals are very loud in the mix, and they almost completely drown out the weak guitars that grasp for any hold they can find beneath crushing reverb. And holy hell, talk about reverb. The vocals echo for miles and the bass sounds like clattering bones, which while charming in their own way also destroy any hope for the guitars to have a real impact.
Purging Tongues is a ten-tone slab of pure inaccessibility. Just getting your arms around this clusterfuck is an endeavor worthy of legend, but burrowing into this solid black husk will be the real challenge, one perhaps not worth undertaking. Purging Tongues does not lack for ambition, but the busy and bloated compositions left me somewhat cold in comparison to the much more subdued and thought out Seven Chalices. Tetianblood are perched on the edge of Chaos, and hopefully they avoid the temptation to leap into the abyss.
Rating: 7.5/10
A single track spanning fifteen minutes, Purging Tongues sees an already chaotic and atmospheric band devolve into pure chaos noise and Satanic incantation. The music flows like sacrificial blood down a slopping altar, moving from unhinged noise and devilish chanting to bursts of Blasphemy-meets-Incantation grinding and back again, never giving the listener one second to even comprehend the machinations at work. None of the individual elements are particularly surprising or new for Teitanblood: Seven Chalices featured all the same insane sounds. It's the density of the composition that makes Purging Tongues that much more inhuman.
This density is also as much a curse as a blessing. Purging Tongues has Teitanblood entering Portal territory here, for better or worse. Following individual song elements becomes very difficult in this blistering haze, and it's pretty much impossible to pick out any individual riffs or sections as highlights. Purging Tongues must be taken as a whole or not at all, and at times the whole affair feels over-wrought and directionless. It doesn't help that the production is so uneven: the bass, drums and vocals are very loud in the mix, and they almost completely drown out the weak guitars that grasp for any hold they can find beneath crushing reverb. And holy hell, talk about reverb. The vocals echo for miles and the bass sounds like clattering bones, which while charming in their own way also destroy any hope for the guitars to have a real impact.
Purging Tongues is a ten-tone slab of pure inaccessibility. Just getting your arms around this clusterfuck is an endeavor worthy of legend, but burrowing into this solid black husk will be the real challenge, one perhaps not worth undertaking. Purging Tongues does not lack for ambition, but the busy and bloated compositions left me somewhat cold in comparison to the much more subdued and thought out Seven Chalices. Tetianblood are perched on the edge of Chaos, and hopefully they avoid the temptation to leap into the abyss.
Rating: 7.5/10
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