G&P Review: Infernal Stronghold/Gatt

Infernal Stronghold/Gatt
Pests
Bullshit Propaganda
I admittedly don’t know much about black metal, but anybody who wants to drive trucks into churches while raging to ice pelted crust has got to be invited to my next party. After Godless Noise made me feel a little bad about all the shit I’ve talked about black metal, Infernal Stronghold strike back with an even more unhinged cross-section of crusted blackness that sounds like the distilled audio essence of Jack’s fate in The Shining. What’s most interesting about the three new songs is how they dip in and out of various genres, recycling their tropes for Infernal Stronghold’s only nefarious purposes..
The ever so polite “Excuse All the Blood” brilliantly works a pretty traditional hardcore riff until the miles away rasping reverbed vocals and blastbeats kick in. It’s a high protein prime cut of punk goodness that would have people grabbing change in another context. “They Let Their Guard Down” slips ’80s thrash a mickey on a slippery, serpentine mite of guitar noodling I think I remember from an old Sacred Reich album.
And then there’s Indonesia’s Gatt, who work pretty much the same shtick as Infernal Stronghold, only slightly slower and without as much grace. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Gatt, per se, but when you’re the flip side of your style’s apotheosis, you tend to look a tad tinsel in comparison. Unlike Infernal Stronghold, Gatt actually allowed their singer to be in the same time zone during recording so there’s no echo, and in a concession to frail human flesh, they also turned the temperature up in the studio to keep their blood from coagulating in their arteries. But their songs are serviceable bits of blacked crust. The guitars are all snarly and indistinct, the drums are lost somewhere beneath a pond scum of distortion and the vocals are croaky and grim.
While Gatt are still out of their league, anything new from Infernal Stronghold makes this a worthwhile split to snag.

[Full disclosure: BS Propaganda sent me a review copy.]

G&P Review: Infernal Stronghold

Infernal Stronghold

Godless Noise

Forcefield

Otto: Don't call me stupid.

Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

A Fish Called Wanda

1988

Where else other than black metal would you find a swath of humanity that simultaneously claims to possess the sole true embodiment of Nietzche’s will to power, triumphing over the slave morality of conformist society, while loudly decrying any other of the armchair ubermenschen with the temerity to flaunt their ever so rigid rules?

On the rare occasions I’ve looking for something blackened, a couple spins of Hellhammer or reservations at Acadiana are generally enough to set me straight. So Infernal Stronghold’s second long player (vinyl!) of blackened crust charred flesh is not the kind of thing I would have picked for myself. Infernal Stronghold’s second full length is a freezer burnt batch of horror punk with wall of ice vocal screeches that sound like they were recorded a county over from the rest of the band. It’s a distillation and celebration of the crusty Amebix punk grime that soots the inner linings of black metal’s soul. The

Everything on the Christ-punching Godless Noise (check out songs like “Crashing Trucks into Churches” and “Fuck ‘Thou Shalt Culture’”) chugs along at the speed of Satan with heaps of malevolent feedback shearing at the double picked guitars distant drums and howled vocals, but Philadelphians sport no corpse paint and wear nary a spiked bracelet in band photos. In fact, their bedhair and ragged shirts would pass unremarked if they were your run of the mill Assuck cover band.

Infernal Stronghold’s one nod to being kvlt seems to be their unwillingness to label side A and B on their LP, so I have no clue which song is which. That said, there’s a Conan-core tinged riff during a slow song in the middle of one of the sides that Crom would sell their autographed Robert E. Howard originals to have written. Fenriz probably approves, but there’s enough of that squatter soul to Godless Noise that even an unrepentant black metal mocker such as myself actually had the urge to throw the goat and go running shirtless through the forest on a moonlit night.

[Full Disclosure: Forcefield kindly provided me with a copy.]