Originally written by Kris Yancey
Every now and again, I wish I could project vomit blood at will. Sure, it would probably denigrate my health, but goddamn, bespeckling somebody with crimson vitae from your throat; that’s an event. I know at least thirty people that would pay to see such an act, and I’m naïve enough to think that would cover hospital bills. Furthermore, I couldn’t just shower the masses in a sanguine mess without ample inspiration or agitation. Sputtering gore is something to be savored.
That is, unless your soundtrack is Ayat’s Six Years of Dormant Hatred. If I had this blasting in my ear for a day, my immediate neighborhood would be sufficiently decorated in my bloody spew.
Six Years… is an infectious yet caustic black metal album. Judging from the first couple minutes of “Ilahiya Khinzir! (All Hail Allah the Swine),” these Lebanese boys seem like the kinda guys that would be willing to conjure up an evil spirit just to put a boot to its neck. They also seem like a couple of fellas that don’t have any qualms dragging women into cold, dimly lit basements for hardcore sex while Wurdulak plays in the background. Given that I live in a cold, dimly lit basement, I can only imagine that these Ayat guys are my kinda people.
I am making the above assumptions solely from the music of Six Years…, which drifts back and forth between bludgeoning black n’ roll, blast-‘til-we’re-dead black metal ditties, and the hit-or-miss mesmerizing drone riffs. The fact that they combine these three very different styles together seamlessly and with some of the best samples ever (ever? EVER.) immeasurably ups the ante for Six Years’… sheer sonic menace. Case in point: “Fornication and Murder” is an eleven-and-a-half minute monolith that has turned my stomach every listen due to its second half, a cosmic chiming guitar riff with reverberating vocal patterns screaming “murder” again and again. But get this – it closes with the opening lines of “Guilty” as sung by Al Bowlly: “Is it a sin? Is it a crime? Loving you dear like I do?” Do these lyrics attempt to justify the wrongs exacted in the song? Is the sample offered up to contrast the other eleven minutes of gut-punching bleakness? Maybe. It works.
As an anti-Islamic band, Ayat make no effort disguising their hatred for Allah Akbar, which is a stance I’ve rarely (if ever) heard before. Granted, I can only make out bits and pieces of what Filthy Fuck (yes, that’s really his stage moniker) is screeching and screaming, but I’d be willing to feed him a healthy supply of whatever he hates if it means I can hear vocals like this on the next Ayat album. Imagine Wrath from Dødsferd and Kvarforth from Shining amalgamated with a less subtle version of Melechesh, and you’re about there. Filthy Fuck sounds like a pissed motherfucker (appropriate considering track nine, “Thousands of Pissed Motherfuckers…”), complete with sandpaper howls and all.
I wish there were a black metal chef in training so I could point at my plate, indicating, “See this? That’s how you cook good black metal.” I can only hope it doesn’t take Ayat another six years for the next dish.
