Using the time-honored (or dishonored, should your tastes lean – or not lean – in that direction) two-piece drummer and vocalist/axe-wielder template popularized by DARKTHRONE, Italy’s blackdeath force, AFFLICTION VECTOR, return five years after their Death Comes Supreme EP with debut full-length, Contra Hominem.
‘Antiuomo’ begins, almost KING DIAMOND-esque, what might be a harpsichord providing disjointed, broken dance music for twisted marionets before being blasted by martial drum cadence and vocals more howled than screeched. Throat scraper Ans must’ve really taken his psychiatrist’s words about Primal Scream therapy to heart, as that’s what’s going on here, and to disquieting effect. I won’t say there’s a “song” here, but as sonic threat, it works well. Making good on its promise, ‘Lethal’ is more of the same, but different, the riff at 0:55-1:09 instantly memorable, and the bulldozer rhythm collides with it, followed by angular, almost noise-rock strangling and skree, you know you’re not dealing with something off-the-shelf here. Ans and Stefano S. have clearly put the work in to differentiate AV from the norm at the start.
Ambient instrumental ‘Cavern’s Murmur’ whispers into ‘Ephemeral Lifeless’, only to be pummeled to dust by off-kilter drum work and bizarro riff, moans and anguished wail, while ‘Nero Gorgo’ marries tremolo flailing to time signatures of rhythmic insani-tensity. A thunderous ‘Animalis Irae’ propels us into the climactic paean ‘To Lucifer’, organs, melody and mayhem exploding everywhere in glorious, cataclysmic jabbers of the mentally scattered.
Beholden to no constraint, a far cry from the following sheep even at this early stage, and with such a strong foundation upon which to build, AFFLICTION VECTOR and their like will be exactly the sort that could take black metal into its next phase. Contra Hominem is the soundtrack to your next road trip through a disjointed landscape.
Review By: Lord Randall
AFFLICTION VECTOR
Contra Homimen
Iron Bonehead