ALBUM REVIEW: Profanation – Ultra-Noise Warfare

Following their aptly titled “Skull Crushing Violence” EP, French death metal maniacs Profanation are back with their debut full length, “Ultra-Noise Warfare”. Out via Iron Bonehead Productions on the 25th of September.

A maelstrom of bestial grinding guitar riffs, blast-beats and whammy dives frantically pulverise your skull with total death. Vocals strike mercilessly through the mix as savage grooves and maniacal assaults spew forth with nuclear force. Having recently reviewed the new record by Sépulcre which shares guitarist Kev Desecrator, this is a very different kind of beast. While their brand of death metal focuses more on atmospheric intensity, Profanation is an abrasive beast of pure malevolence. What I am driving at is the diverse range of underground metallic fury that France has to offer even when some of the musicians overlap. The influences of the earliest death metal masters blend with more bestial blackened characteristics and plenty of grindcore in the early American and British veins. Simply put, this is an unforgiving sound that rots straight through to the bone with maximum corrosive power. The songs are mostly short which adds to the direct, urgent and natural feeling they convey which is total distress and annihilation.

Stomping hooks and blistering fury continually propagate a sense of armageddon and chaos. The d-beating frenzy and utterly mental soloing combine with the riffs in such a forcefully violent way and the vocals sure don’t take it easy either. In under half an hour all of your senses will be overcome by malignant, unforgiving and destructive metallic forces. If you wanted to imagine the end result of Conqueror, Repulsion, Nihilist and basically any of the most filthy, aggressive and vicious bands you can think of; Profanation is that. Utterly primitive, maddeningly intense and inarguably cruel, this album may not be for most fans of death metal, but those seeking true bloody carnage will adore it. As for me, I think it’s a triumphant continuation from their killer EP and I hope they stay on this trajectory of total uncompromising warfare. Artillery in musical form that is not for the weak.

Profanation is like the sonic equivalent of the film Threads from 1984; a nuclear strike leaving devastation, hopelessness and sheer dread in its wake. This isn’t a nice listen, nor a comforting one. “Ultra-Noise Warfare” lacerate, wound, punish, torture and rip with vengeful death metal of the meanest variety. If there was a visual way to describe this record it would be to imagine a bulldozer driving through the catacombs and suffocating all within in a landslide of rotten corpses and bone dust. The Brazilian’s gave us warfare noise. The French gave us ultra noise warfare.