The time for Hath’s second EP is here.
Created in 2014 in the United States, the band releases an EP in 2015 then signs with Willowtip Records. After the release of their first full-length, followed by the re-release of their EP, Frank Albanese (guitar/vocals, Ophidius), Greg Nottis (bass/vocals), Peter Brown (guitar, Ophidius, ex-Dystrophy) and AJ Viana (drums, Cognitive, Ophidius) announce All That Was Promised, illustrated by Adam Burke (Angel Witch, Atræ Bilis, Bell Witch, Solstafir, Perdition Temple…).
The Million Violations slowly wraps us into a weighing and chaotic dissonance before heavier elements enter the game, adding a dark strength to haunting tones. Ice-cold howlings perfectly stick to raw riffs, unveiling a part of technicality into the wave of blackness, followed by Kenosis and its instant aggressiveness. The unhealthy oppression is melted to majestic sonorities, more airy parts, then intense clean vocals join screams before leads come to feed the soaring ambience, which will sink into abrasive aggressiveness again with Lithopaedic. Complexity and sharp harmonics come to darken the heady melting with ravaging Old School roots, which will lets place to Iosis after a hooking final. The song is immediately anchored into raw and straightforward strength while creating a mysterious and weighing veil, that the band will fill with seizing harmonics before Decollation comes to crush us. As a storm, the composition lacerates us with its sharp leads and vocal parts supported by choirs, but it also offers us a moment of respite before coming back for a seizing final, followed by Death Complex and its Prog-influenced riffs. Whether the basis of the song is still focusing on a dark violence some harmonics come to add a special taste to the worrying song, which will become suffocating before the flood of leads, which drives us to Casting Of The Self and its haunting softness. The song is quite slow at first, then the rhythmic wildly settles in with straightforward and hooking patterns, melting blast and fury, and leaving the field to howlings before slowly fading away, and letting All That Was Promised unveiling its melancholy. It will be broken by a fast-paced violence, but also by some heavy modern and devastating influences, also placing dissonant elements before leaving us on Name Them Yet Build No Monument, the last song, which consciously crushes us with its as majestic as powerful rhythmic. Vocals also follows this aggressive tendency, and fury will shatter on our feets, allowing a soft and dark melody to close the work.
Since its very beginnings, Hath only has positive feedback. The reason is that their crushing melting of Black, Death and Prog elements sweeps everything on its way. All That Was Promised will be no exception to the rule, offering us a moment of raw intensity.
95/100