TEITANBLOOD - Death

Whenever I hear someone use the phrase ‘the devil is in the details’, it always makes me stop and think. Of course, I know what it implies; I know that it has very little to do with the Prince Of Darkness himself but it’s that light-heartedness that stops me. The Devil is, and has always been, the storyteller’s favourite boogeyman, be it in print, picture or song, and for good reason. He is the first, the original, the blueprint for everything that came after and because of that I tend to find a lot of artists’ interpretation of him somewhat lacklustre, like they’re missing a trick. Make no mistake, he is always guilty of condemnable vices but those vices are in many cases underwhelmingly human: Bulgakov’s Devil is sly and dismissive, Goya’s is lustful, Milton’s Lucifer is vain and arrogant but the Satan of Teitanblood, however, he is of a different ilk. Now, comparing Teitanblood to the immortal work of the artists above may seem misguided – unfair, even – but it’s just that when it comes to channeling the spirit of the Dark Prince, the Spanish duo are eerily on point.

Death is drenched in unrelenting, unstoppable darkness. It is distant and suffocating, full and vacant at the same time, like drowning in a void. It sounds - and feels - like old evil. The album announcement on the Norma Evangelium Diaboli website claimed that it “corrects the misconception about death metal being music”, and while I do somewhat disagree with that claim (what isn’t music nowadays?) I do understand where they’re coming from. Yes, a part of it is the usual theatrical megalomania prevalent in metal but there is also intent, and intent is important. In fact, in this case, intent is the most impressive element. There are so many things done right here; the guitars are at once encompassing and piercing, the vocals dark and vicious, the drumming is overwhelming, the production like a swamp on fire, the songwriting innovative and engaging, but all of that takes second place to the fact that while embracing the harrowing themes of plague, darkness, hatred and, well, death, Teitanblood manage to sound genuine and sincere.

And that is no small feat.

The album lumbers and sprints through an hour of some of the best blackened death metal I have heard in a long time. There are heavy nods to stalwarts of the genre – these guys have heard a Blasphemy album or two –, anchoring the album in tried and tested waters but they are by no means predictable. From the slower, chugging riffs, where the songs swing like a pendulum, to the chaotic onslaught of blastbeats and layered vocals, barely distinguishable from white noise, Teitanblood deliver every time.

There is progress here too. From 2009’s Seven Chalices all through the Purging Tongues and Woven Black Arteries EPs, Teitanblood have tweaked and tuned, honed and sharpened. The improvements are subtle and perhaps hard to detect at times but they are there. Death is just as slimy as their previous output but it feels more piercing, more visceral. A big part of that lies with the drumming but that is only a part of it. The album sounds like a band perfecting their craft and achieving the sound they always set out to make. You hear it in the slight nuances of the production, the stretching of the strings, the straining of the vocals and the exhaustion of the blasts. In other words, people are right when they say that the devil is in the details. It’s just that Teitanblood make me feel like he’s everywhere else too. [Norma Evangelium Diaboli]
- Kolbeinn Þorgeirsson