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Track Listing: Volenti Non Fit Iniuria Drug-Fucking Abomination Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria Le Diabolique Est L'ami Du Simple Locus Of Damnation Tod Huetet Uebel Paragon Pariah Who Thinks Of The Executioner Ashes Screaming Silence Portrait Of The Artist

Anaal Nathrakh is the British duo of Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt, better known as Irrumator and V.I.T.R.I.O.L. respectively. They are back with the sixth full-length offering of their evil and unrelenting fusion of black, grind and industrial metal, titled "Passion". As with the previous release "In The Constellation Of The Black Widow", the band has taken roughly around 18 months to truly express themselves creatively. In their first five albums, the brutality and menace seemed to come from within rather than merely being a shallow musical expression. So when I got an advance copy of their newest release, I was expecting much of the same.

The first 60 seconds of the opening track is like the calm before the storm that ensues. It's incredibly dark and crushingly heavy right from the outset, and seldom have I come across such a face-melting beginning to any album. Besides the blistering guitar riffs and drum sound, the vocal harmonies add depth to the music. The longest track on the album "Drug-Fucking Abomination" follows, a progressive and atmospheric tune with some brilliant tempo changes. This would be absolutely great in a live setting and I hope the band include it when they come around touring behind this album. "Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria" is a complete contrast and is straight-up, in-your-face grindcore with a black metal twist.

Track 4 is a guitar driven black metal song which comes across as very well written and structured, and all the elements combine together to create a killer sound. The contrast from track to track continues as "Locus Of Damnation" follows in the form of a short burst of grindcore. "Tod Heutet Uebel" is perhaps the most interesting track on the album as it showcases a style of vocals that is different from the rest of the album. Dave's voice here is very expressive and when combined with what I think is the darkest sounding piece of music on the album, it creates an ear-piercing impact on the listener. "Paragon Pariah" is a brilliant follow-up which continues with the black metal aspect but also presents in patches the other extreme of the vocal talent on hand here, in the form of clean vocals.

After tracks like the last two, the listeners would be left hungry for yet more, and the next two songs "Who Thinks Of The Executioner" and "Ashes Screaming Silence" do plenty to appease their desires. The latter actually turns out to be the most varied track on the album and easily one of the best. It offers a bit of everything and represents what this album musically stands for, with a taste of black metal, industrial grooves, grind, harsh as well as clean vocals, and an altogether intense, raw sound. The album comes to a close with the short outro track "Portrait Of The Artist".

Overall, this album surpasses their previous releases and gives not only their fans, but fans of black metal and grindcore in general, something to devour. But along with these characteristic elements, they've continued to push newer boundaries, specially with the variety in vocal techniques. With this release they've proved themselves as one of the most inventive bands to have emerged in the last decade. For fans in the US, they have been somewhat of a mysterious, almost fictional entity as they've performed live in the country only twice in their entire career. But this album has some amazing material that needs to be presented to us, so hopefully we'll get to see the band in the near future.

An unforgivingly brutal effort.