While what’s happening to the goat in the lead track from AIMA’s debut full-length, Tragos may involve fucking of a sort, it definitely doesn’t sound as if anything’s being redeemed, so furious is the rhythm cannonade, so malevolent the riffs. Slithering back and forth and back again, from INCANTATION-style doom to a more cavernous BLEEDING FIST, this trio is locked into each other’s musical sensibilities, grafted to one another, even when ‘The Occultist’ threatens to take the whole careening train off the rails.
‘Possessed Preacher’ imbues and invades, a sonic reverse exorcism, casting demonic forces in rather than out. The power of the riff compels you, indeed, sirs, even when lumbering as opposed to lashing.
The first 10-odd seconds of the abbreviated ‘Roar Of The Animal’ had me a bit concerned I was due for some banal ambiance, which would be diametrically opposed to what’s come before. Turns out I should’ve had more faith in the faithless, as 2 seconds later I was whipped up in a whirlwind of Slayer-when-Slayer-was-SLAYER proportions. Conjuring at its start a death metal nod to TYPE O NEGATIVE – likely unintentional – ‘Carve Ritualistic Pictographs On Forehead’ soon enough crushes eardrums under the weight of unforgiving blasts, and finale ‘Hands In Blood’ is, quite simply, unhinged Italian dark art at its most feral.
In short, recommended to anyone who likes their death unpredictable and their blackness infernal. I’ll be listening to Tragos again later tonight.
Review By: Lord Randall
AIMA
Tragos
Nuclear War Now! Productions
4 / 6