ALBUM REVIEW: Hagzissa – They Ride Along

Here I review the debut album of HAGZISSA, out on August 23rd via Iron Bonehead Productions.

Opening with feedback and cymbal crashes, raw doomy riffs soon draw out melancholic atmospheres, conjuration a truly occult vibe. Waves of discordantly ripping guitars and grimy blastbeats soar forth amidst an onslaught of hastily screamed vocals with some excellent use of punky rhythms to give some jumpy bite to the ferociously diabolical music, this has attitude and a thoroughly believable aggression that conveys the raw spirit of Black Metal to a T. The lead guitar sections are somewhat buried but it keeps a nuanced feel to them and stops them spoiling the gigantic momentum of things. The mixture of classic Black Metal assaults with bombarding and intense doomy atmospherics is utterly fantastic, with a primitive simplicity that conjures up so much even if the ideas themselves are somewhat basic ones. The only particular critique I have is that I feel a couple of the tracks were a minute or two longer than they needed to be and sort of lingered unnecessarily but with that said, this still does not even begin to mess up the fiercely face-shredding groove of the record that keeps on throwing you boulders of 90s nostalgia and gruesomely churned out musical horrors. The sound itself has some slightly more modern ideas to the guitar progressions and occasionally off-kilter drumming that gives a dissonant edge to things while the encapsulation of raw Black Metal from the early days is still certainly intact. The second track is a perfect example of a less traditional ideas (in this case the haunting siren call type vocals) that completely threw me off, which is something I love, because Black Metal should never be predictable, not to mention it sounds a whole lot more menacing than children’s choirs which has become so oversaturated in Extreme Metal that it is just dull, so props to these guys for finding a new and fitting way to be creepy. The relentless attitude and energy is remarkable with a hammering performance of estranged barbarity from start to end that is exhilarating. This is horrifyingly disturbing, crushingly heavy and filled with hypnotically chaotic rhythms that keep your attention for over 40 minutes, driving out a pummelling force of pure Black Metal maniacal savagery. Definitely a release for the die-hard old school fans who still enjoy something refreshing without it becoming pretentious, annoying or faltered. Marvellous work and utterly maddening, twisted, psychotic, Black Metal majesty. -8/10