When you put a title like that on your album, you're really putting it out there. You better deliver. And I can tell you, without a doubt, this entire release delivers in every way you can think of. We have Hell's Headbangers to thank for this beast, and they did a fantastic job. The black and white marble LP, although I think this color is way sold out now. The double gatefold is really well printed, nice and heavy, and has some of the most evil and blasphemous artwork I've ever seen on a release. And the music? Every bit as brutal and foul and blasphemous as you would expect from an album with this title. It's a live album, recorded in Thailand. It's just fantastic.
Surrender of Divinity hail from Thailand, so this must have been a hometown gig for them. Whereas Archgoat put a lot of speed in their black metal, these guys offer more of the chaotic variety of black metal. All 3 band members are just ripping away all at the same time to create a truly hellish cacophony. There seem to be some pretty cool riffs in these 3 tracks but this side of the split suffers a little bit from a bad mix. The drums pretty much take over whenever Mr. Drummer is doing fills and rolls and double bass insanity, which is pretty much all the time. The drums are way too high in the mix so you just hear the guitar and bass in small windows when the drums mellow out for 5 seconds. I was not familiar with this band prior to listening to this split but they have some good stuff going on and I'd like to hear some studio recordings with everything in the proper spot in the mix. My favorite from them is the wonderfully named “Manifest Blasphemy”.
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