The Panzerchrist machine is up and running again.
After making a triumphant comeback last year with an album and then an EP, both excellent, Panzergeneral (keyboards/bass, ex-Illdisposed), Frederik O’Carroll (guitar, Mordulv), Danny Bo Pedersen (guitar, ex-Arsenic Addict), Sonja Rosenlund Ahl (vocals, ex-Arsenic Addict) and their new recruit Ove Lungskov (drums, Rotten Ocean) begin a new chapter with Maleficium – Part I, their ninth album, released by Emanzipation Productions.
Anguish immediately revives with the introductive sample of Blood Leeches, the first composition with devastating riffs complemented by the fury of the vocal parts. Keyboards are also used to lend ominous touches to certain passages, creating a contrast with the quasi-permanent double pedal found on Weak Is The Flesh, where the rhythm is far more chaotic. Leads bring that mysterious aura to the “calmer” passages, but the unifying choruses reinvigorate the sound before Mist on the Moat weaves its apocalyptic, oppressive tones through the continuous pounding. The unhealthy Black Metal influences are very well exploited on this track, which nonetheless provides a small moment of calm before the final that leads to Confessions and its sampled introduction that depicts a suspicion of heresy, but it’s with all its rage that the band takes over again. Once again, the musicians roll over us without mercy, as with Sister Death, the following track, where we sense that the mix has totally abandoned itself to pure violence, but above all to darkness, as evidenced by this heavy bass/drums break. Blasphemy returns with the impressive Curse of Desire, a slower but equally gripping composition whose atmosphere quickly becomes heady, but also at times softer and more ethereal, as on the final before the return to power on the melodious Savage Daughter. It’s a short track, which feels at first very contrasted, then totally unleashed, and which finally gives way to the wild Ritual, the last song on which the band closes this album with devastating riffs, but above all that intense, palpable atmosphere of the Old School approach.
Now that Panzerchrist is underway, there seems to be no stopping it! Maleficium Part I is once again an excellent album, but its title seems to suggest a sequel, which I hope will be just as incredible!
95/100