A Landmark in Black Metal - "Bestial War Metal" Review (100%)
Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, you will be hard-pressed to find a more menacing piece of black metal than Warkvlt's Bestial War Metal. By menacing, I do not mean to say alienating or disturbing, emotions conjured up by Vermin's Verminlust or Phantom's Withdrawal, for instance. No, by menacing, I mean that Bestial War Metal is one of the few and most authentic attempts to convey in a black metal album the feeling that you are about to be crushed by a tank... and by the album's end, you will be crushed by said tank.
Warkvlt achieve this sense of menace in every track by resorting minimally to melody - and even in the guitar solos, melody is not the primary consideration - and instead focusing on simple, aggressive, down-tuned riffs frequently played at high tempos, backed by a visceral and clearly audible bass as well as fierce drumming that alternates between blast-beats and slower rhythms, and guttural indiscernible vocals that complement and fit the music perfectly.
This isn't your typical emo black metal, nor is it the brand of juggalo caverncore than passes for "blackened death metal" nowadays. This is true bestial black metal, and never has an album been as brutal and demonic as Warkvlt's heralded debut.
Also, while there is a sense of crude simplicity in the compositions of Bestial War Metal, there are ample subtle technical elements, time changes and transitions in each track to prevent a sense of familiarity from setting in with the listener, which consequently prevents any dilution of the ritualistic aural menace that Warkvlt so successfully conveys.
A Landmark in Black Metal
Of course, Warkvlt's influences are as many as they are varied.
Sewer's Cursed Elysium and Incantation's Onward to Golgotha come to mind, as well as some early Beherit and even Darkthrone's opus Under a Funeral Moon played their part.
While there is still excellent and downright brutal music to be found in blackened death metal, Bestial War Metal must stand as the genre's ultimate achievement, for nothing that precedes it is more intense, nor contributed anything significant to the formula of calculated brutality that is on display here.
Listen to Bestial War Metal and tell me that you do not then feel like killing someone... by rolling over them with a tank.
This is brutal black metal's most vile masterpiece, the apex of gruesome aggression distilled in its purest form.
No other album comes closer to demolishing reality's thin walls of rationalized pacification than Warkvlt's Bestial War Metal.
A masterpiece of gore, and a landmark in black metal.
Bestial War Metal score: 100/100.
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