Originally written by Ross Main.
Even lightly seasoned Metal Review followers will be familiar with Wrath; the one man Greek black metal machine, and his hate-screaming, corpse-painted, middle finger project known as Dodsferd. It’s also common knowledge that this guy doesn’t fuck around getting stuff done and the dedication he has to his message and philosophy, fuelled by a consumption of pain and disgust, has spawned five albums and one split in the last three years. Quality has never been compromised amidst the densely packed releases, but what makes this second record in Dodsferd’s current trilogyinitially less impressive is the fact that the 36 minutes are only filled with a handful of chord progressions.
I say ‘initially’ because when you are geared up for another typically raw and honest black metal outing, packed with punk, necro-groove and melody, but get a solid block of A, F, and D being picked at a sluggish pace for five minutes at a time, as seen in the second of two lengthy tracks “His Veins Colored the Room”, it’s a little unnerving. The tempo does not change once and the whole album is a dying linear crawl through desperate tundra, snow, ice… mud, shit, ooh is that grass? nope, mud again, then collapse.
But for some god damn reason it’s just captivating. Comparable to a better produced cross section of American black metallers Judas Iscariot, the underhanded build-ups between drawn out progressions are tantric and the itchy lead parts over the broken-record guitar lines get trippier and trippier. Wrath’s suicidal throat aligns itself to the sound of Suicide And the Rest of Your Kind Will Follow, stamping the slog with Pterodactyl impressions, incoherently ranting with hate and fury regarding the cruel fate of being the last of its species alive, only to be oxygen starved in deep space. I can only imagine the session drummer to be some nocturnal mammal, with the ten second memory necessary to make the recording of this album bearable.
There is no-one out there that could care any less about perception than Wrath and it has paid off again. A slowly seeping decanter of detestation, Dodsferd continue to represent the sound and values of traditional black metal sufficiently for present day.
