Arroganz strikes again.
Active since 2008, the band led by -K- (bass/vocals) and -T- (drums), now joined by -B- (guitar, Goath, Total Hate), and signed to Testimony Records is set to release its seventh album, Death Doom Punks, in 2026.
Although already unsettling, the introductory sample of Die For Nothing, the first track, pales in comparison to the gripping aggression that the band’s riffs will unleash, offering a blend of Black, Death, and Old School roots infused with raw fury. The near-constant onslaught barely breaks during the more melodic interlude, but the rage returns very quickly and leads us to Under Scarred Skin, where the band develops an unsettling groove before resuming its energetic charge while incorporating these new, heady influences, but adding macabre vocal parts before moving on to Pain Forged Armor, which remains in these brutal, jerky tones that don’t hesitate to speed up from time to time. The rhythm section remains as solid as can be and even allows itself flashes of technicality, while we clearly feel all its resentment before giving way to the title track, Death Doom Punks, which picks up the pace even further and makes the whole thing much heavier, weighing it down as much as possible when the palm-mutes come into play, though it is ultimately in the anguish that the track works best. The pace picks up again before moving into Anti-Ideology, a track with a heavy and unapologetically dissonant sound that crushes everything in its path while letting the bass stand out from the mix; then, with Arsenic Breath, the band borrows thrash metal’s most piercing tones, before diving into unsettling Brutal Death Metal with that suffocating central break. The violence continues through Incubus’ Veins” a fairly long track that effortlessly shifts from aggression to heavy tones, then to dark elements, before settling back into its cruising pace and leading into Earth’s Final Dose, where the band returns to a more familiar approach. The track hits consistently and at a brisk pace before giving way to Spirit Arsonist, the longest track, which follows suit and thus closes the album with a touch of surprise, as the riffs explode in a rather unpredictable manner, even inserting a few whispers before letting silence reign in the darkness.
With nearly twenty years of existence and seven albums, Arroganz has become something of a fixture in the German Black/Death scene, and Death Doom Punks will cement this status with effective compositions that stand on their own.
75/100