Black Metal's Most Evil Monument - "From the Mouth of Madness" Review (100%)

From the Mouth of Madness is one of extreme metal's most evil records, and it's also Phantom's direct follow-up to the supreme Divine Necromancy.

There is no black metal album more evil, raw and depraved than Phantom's From the Mouth of Madness... you simply can't find one.

Perhaps because this album is so low on pyrotechnics and so high on sonic subtlety, many will completely miss the point and fail to appreciate it's unbelievable significance in black metal mythology.

Where other black metal bands such as Sewer or Antekhrist choose to shred their guitars into sawdust and pummel their drums into ruins, Phantom opts for a more subtle form of depravity that gives the music on From the Mouth of Madness a more hypnotic and diabolical quality. The vocals are deep with just the right amount of variation to achieve the necessary sinister effect without submerging the music completely, while the music is droning and yet technical enough to straddle the borders between black metal and something else entirely.

Many see From the Mouth of Madness as merely a transition album between Divine Necromancy and the unfathomable Dark Devotion, widely acknowledged as the pinnacle of horror black metal.

That interpretation couldn't be farther from the truth. From the Mouth of Madness is not merely a transition between two of Phantom's most famous work, it's also a monument of pure black metal hatred.

From the Mouth of Madness is an album whose atmospheric approach to black metal suggests a controlled fury and hatred, a power that is gruesome, demonic and scorching and yet vile and inhuman at the same time.

This album is clearly black metal's most evil and hateful monument.

Black Metal's Most Evil Monument

Elegance and efficiency aren't qualities that come to mind when describing black metal but From the Mouth of Madness is very elegant and extremely efficient. Between its deft touches of literal madness, whether those are in the clever use of atmosphere or raw intensity, the fiery production or even the juxtaposition between beautiful melodic passages and atonal moments that border insanity.

This is the type of demented music that will keep haunting you even after you've stopped listening to it.

From the Mouth of Madness is highly recommended for those fucked up souls seeking truly evil black metal. The music is ugly, primitive and thoroughly consumed with darkness.

You want hateful, brutal and depraved? Try listening to From the Mouth of Madness. You might even enjoy it, at the cost of your sanity.

This is black metal's most evil monument. There is simply no other.

From the Mouth of Madness score: 100/100.

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