Arabrot- The Gospel (2016)



Arabrot- The Gospel (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

With legal problems concerning a supposed sexual offense, Michael Gira seems to be facing a turbulent year, Gira seems to be slowly but firmly becoming a major influence on today's metal and avant garde acts, is just a matter of checking Norway's Arabrot newest The Gospel in order to know that some people in Scandinavia have been heavily listening to Gira's Swans.

The title track is a definite call for war, it has a bit of Bauhaus school of post punk darkness, but it's also a descend into hellish territories, slowly getting into Gira's domains, Arabrot main man, and apparently only actual member Kjetik Nernes has been working in pretty chaotic sound waves here, I Run is quite a trip travelling in a parallel fashion through the worlds of ugliness and beauty, and Nernes triumphal run is evident creating a truly dense dynamic of musical creation, adding touches of drama and epic instrumentation that at this precise moment seems to make his musical project untouchable.

On Tall Man Nernes again plays with musical possibilities, adopting at times the sound fullness of Nine Inch Nails production wise, but adding personal touches into a project that can be as universal as extremely loud heavy metal, or as reflective as Kjetik wants it to be, here going gor the throat marrying superb melody with headstrong mammoth beats.

While Faustus is mainly an exercise on atmospherics, with ascending intensity but really ending nowhere, Ah Feel seems to pay homage to the mighty Washington State giants The Melvins (a powerful early influence very noticeable on the first records by Nernes) with its monumental monolithic drums and venomous spewing vocals, but on And the Whore is this City, Nernes again plays well his cards bringing us another great song evocative of the best of the post punk era.

Arabrot, or Nernes, as you wish to call it plays The Gospel just the way it should be played, isba devastating record with powerful playing, is still a little bit derivative from Nernes influences, but to be fair, it is also showing great promises as Nernes proves his enormous talent to introduce memorable desperate melodies inside the cathartic and chaotic music he likes to create, a wild card that seems destined to get better with each new recording.


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