Sammath - godless arrogance (Hammerheart, 2014)
OG metalheads: it's okay. You can open your eyes again. I just bought about 7 LPs from a guy who's selling his entire collection. Luckily for my wallet, from the over 8000 titles in his list over 70% was on tape or CD. Still, I selected about 20 titles and narrowed them down to about 10. Since it took him a couple of days more than expected he added this one to the pile. Extra record in a package mostly means buuuuullshit, but not this time. Sammath is a raging Dutch black metal band that leans towards war metal in it's abbrasiveness. Right when they're about to tip over to the blur of noise these type of bands tend to get, Sammath holds back and keep everything within the bounds of well-written, recognisable songs and riffs. Excellent riffs with a good balance inbetween dissonance and high-end black metal headbanging. The current drummer is ex-Centurian (possibly one of the most impressive death metal bands to ever come from The Netherlands?), but the one on these recordings is fucking nuts as well. Fast, complex and eager for tempo changes. No atmospheric, melodic nature worshipping black metal here. This is for fans of Angelcorpse, Marduk or Immortal. One of the genuine "what the fuck" moments on the record for me was this one below: death (hunt them down).
