Archgoat – Heavenly Vulva (Christ’s Last Rites) (Debemur Morti Productions)

Saturday, 23rd March 2013
Rating: 6.5/10

Hard to be shocked and/or turned off by the cover of Archgoat’sHeavenly Vulva (Christ’s Last Rties), as we’ve seen worse (and better). Still, it’s a nice way to have one harken back to the halcyon days of black/death metal when extremity on both the visual and musical sides was an untapped front. It makes one want to actually listen to Deicide’s Once Upon the Cross. Now that’s a messed-up album cover.

Essentially straddling the line between classic Incantation (so we’re talking about Onward to Golgotha) and early 90’s black metal, Archgoat make fast work out of this six-song mini album. It’s probably best that they do, given most of the ideas the band is presenting have long been glossed over by much better and significant bands. There’s simply not a merit to this album in the pantheon of necro and throwback bands, outside of the fact Archgoat started way back in 1989, which makes them all the more wiser.

Sloppy and grimy in all the right spots, Heavenly Vulva is a textbook display of classic death and black metal. But since the band is still poaching all of their ideas from said era, it’s hard to put any sort of seal of authenticity on this release. Maybe someone will pick this up based on the cover alone. Gotta love judging a book by its cover.

www.archgoat.com

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

[fbcomments width="580"]