Impalement is the Swiss, one-man project from Beliath (who also helps out with Germany’s Nargaroth for live shows).  But unlike the other recent Swiss one-man project I reviewed, Felonie, which was more melodic atmospheric black metal, this, as the apt album title states, is blistering, black/death metal.

The Dawn of Blackened Death is the second album from Impalement and it’s an impressive display of well-produced, well-written, searing black/death with some slicing melodies and ferocious riffs that culls from the likes of Dissection, Necrophobic, Forest of Impaled, Naglfar and such.

The album starts ferociously with “The Herd Marches On”, with a seething mix of blasts, militant marches, and brimstone vocals. Then the next 35 minutes or so deliver 5 more tracks of the same superbly delivered, blackened, balanced savagery with just enough melody and death metal burliness to be not a full-on display of either.

The title track rumbles with menace to start and then goes full-on Dissection, but with a much more devastating guitar tone, replete with a really nice solo. War-mongering “Legio Nihil” has one of the album’s more vitriolic riffs and is one of the album’s standouts, in an album of consistently good tracks.

“The Old Ones” has some really nice, urgent melodies that show Beliath’s grasp of the genre beyond sheer savagery which is on display for another of the album’s standouts “Will to Power”.

“Death to the Gods” teases a slower number with a mid-paced first few bars but the familiar savgery returns and even delivers and really nice key change in its later stages.

Finally, the closer “Chosen By Tragedy” ends the album with a frosty, pure melodic black death assault akin to Istapp, and some really epic lead work as well a nice short acoustic fade out to let listeners catch their breath from a really impressive album that was a very pleasant surprise at the tail end of 2023.

[Visit the band's website]

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