We’re in an age of chaos and confusion. Now, in a musical setting, that can be a visceral experience. Notes colliding into each other at breakneck speed while the drums blast and the bass rumbles the Earth. It’s the basis of Black Metal. Eternal suffering and a veil of darkness lowering onto the desolate landscape.

It’s within this vortex that Teitanblood worship the grotesqueries that reside just outside our perception. They’ve been performing rituals since their inception in 2004 and the release of the Genocide Chants to Apolokian Dawn demo. You’d think they’d have this extensive catalog of music, right? From the Visceral Abyss is only their fourth full-length!

Of course, it’s brutal and mind-bending, that’s what Teitanblood does best. Starting with the straightforward “Enter the Hypogeum” finds a thrashing guitar and drums battling it out. It’s a slick Blackened Thrash track, and it propels this album to otherworldly heights.

Hailing from Madrid, they’re very far away from Deathspell Omega in terms of global positioning, but seated firmly in their wheelhouse musically. Teitanblood delivers the goods on the trippy introduced “Sepulchral Carrion God” with an industrial style opening that gives way to riffs sharp enough to cleave you, constant reader, in half. Figuratively speaking, of course.

From The Visceral Abyss travels in the same vein as The Baneful Choir from 2019 (!!!) I just snapped that it’s been six years since that album was unleashed. Jesus fucking Christ. I guess a lot happened over that period of time. Whatever, this album kills.

The title track has this immense riff that explodes into a million universal pieces. It’s a bit more of a Death Metal track than the rest of the album, the drums are just unrelenting. It bristles and gleams with pitch black venom.

“Sevenhundreddogsfromhell” is literally eerie noises over some probably cute as fuck dogs barking their heads off. It’s a moment of diabolical adorablness, come on; admit you would pet the shit out of Cerberus if that 3-headed doggie was real.

“Strangling Visions” rips open wide your Pineal gland for some cosmic Black Metal mind fucking. It’s a tossed salad of Blut Aus Nord, Blaze of Perdition, and Deathspell Omega; built to render you senseless with a Black Metal lobotomy.

“And Darkness Was All” gets you ready for some more sickness and decay. It’s a ravaging track for its 7:44 ride down the Styx. But it is “Tomb Corpse Haruspex” that is the showstopper at 14:53. It’s a roller-coaster ride through Hell, demonic howls and roars come from NSK’s vocal delivery. One minute it’s thrashing and the next furious blasting takes control. This is definitely my favorite track by far and that’s what makes From the Visceral Abyss such a ballistic weapon of an album.

Is From the Visceral Abyss better than my favorite album from Teitanblood, 2014’s Death? That’s still to be determined, but I am certain that this is going to pop up on my year-end list somewhere. This is such a brutal album from one of my favorite bands in the genre.

For you sickos that love Blut Aus Nord, Blaze of Perdition and Deathspell Omega with some tasty Death Metal thrown in, you’ve come to the right ballpark. This omen of destruction must be in your collection.

[Visit the band's website]

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