Black Metal

For the better part of a decade, RUACH RAAH have been plumbing the depths of the black metal underground with an unapologetically primitivist sound, spread over myriad spilt releases on cassette and vinyl. It all crystallized on their debut album, the aptly titled Hate Fanaticism, released to critical acclaim in 2015 by WAR ARTS PRODUCTIONS. But whereas the power-trio’s sound has thus far maintained a strict, almost martial hypnotism, with Under the Insignia of Baphomet, RUACH RAAH’s sound stretches into a roiling, rabid restlessness that unrelentingly attacks and attacks and ATTACKS. Built upon a solid foundation of gutter-dwelling bass and crunging guitar, the drums blast about in shapes most obscene, foregoing the previous, punk-rooted punch for a wholly more dread-inducing and doom-draped sound. Suitably, their elder rawness has been given a massive boost in the production department, sacrificing none of the cruelty but giving a frightening clarity to their belligerent battery.

If Ildjarn, Bone Awl, and rawest Darkthrone served as aesthetic touchstones in the past, now RUACH RAAH have inched closer to the disgust of classic Profanatica, Order From Chaos, and Black Witchery. It’s a payoff that works in spades, hereby making Under the Insignia of Baphomet a glorious new chapter in the band’s mounting supremacy.

Lim. 100 copies