Mactatus

The Complex Bewitchment (Napalm)
by Scott Hefflon

Good ol’ black metal carnage. Blurred guitar, non-stop drumming (sometimes sounding like a drum machine someone forgot to shut off), blackened howls at dark skies, and more time changes than you’d really rather think about in these mere eight songs. Recorded at the same studio as Emperor, you get a scaled-back version of that same flight into madness feel (none can touch early Emperor). “Another Dimension,” for example, opens with a triumphant keyboard line that sounds like trumpets-in-their-asses, the snarling something about killing Jesus, then transitioning through that the-guitarist-is-falling-down-a-flight-of-stairs thing before breaking down into one of those hardcore trudges the kids like so much, then rocketing forward in a blinding burst of hyperblast beats and returning to the “catchy” opening and ending with a “huh?” And come to think of it, most songs are much like that.
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