Tatanhammer – The Art Of Human Sacrifice Review

While no details have been given as to the recording process of The Art Of Human Sacrifice, one can only imagine it as the three band members of the grave-robbing Finnish black metal outfit Tatanhammer smuggling their equipment deep into henceforth undiscovered levels of ancient catacombs. The sheer amount of grit in the production seems captured from within the earthen walls of of an ancient crypt; the dust of hundreds of disintegrated bones is kicked up by the sheer power of the amplifiers, disturbed for the first time in a thousand years. Not afraid to play on the fringes of musicality, Tatanhammer’s debut is wrought with chaos and absolute filth, suffocating under the fictile weight of its own atmosphere.

The opening track of The Art Of Human Sacrifice serves as a mood-setting intro complete with the desperate and terrifying shrieks of the first victim brought to slaughter. The screams subside to a defeated whimper before an inhuman growl awakens the beast that is Tatanhammer. A full-on auditory assault occurs in the first proper track, as the short but crushing “Ashes” displays how the band’s murky but powerful form of foul black metal flirts with lo-fi cavernous death style. Varying the tempo between a mid-paced trudge and all-out blasting chaos helps the band differentiate their style, as further evidenced in the following track, “At The Altar – Morning.” The synths largely remain in the background until the concluding passage of this song, mostly adding choral layers and ominous atmosphere; at this point they begin to take up a more prominent space. The textures bring to mind an aura of occult psychedelia that really contains the noisey chaos of Tatanhammer’s style of black death metal.

The pace of the album drops to a sludgier, doom-laden tempo through “Faces” and the haunting trudge of “The One,” the latter of which contains more excellent touches from the synths in the form of a twisted organ. It is moments like these – or perhaps the tempo acceleration on “The Filth, The Purest” or the spastastic divebombing on “Backbone Of The Veal” – that really highlight the band’s creativity outside of just a putrid atmosphere. The riffing here is pretty basic, but it provides a spine that Tatanhammer can exploit and pervert to create a complete work of sheer terror that feels shrouded in mystery.

Tatanhammer emerge from the crypt with a well-rounded work of filthy black metal. The Art Of Human Sacrifice manages to assault the listener without relying solely on unrelenting blasting. It’s the little things that add up with this one, from the production to the strange touches added in to give Tatanhammer a distinct flavor for their debut.