April 2023 - Feature Release - The Horde Edition

Another month flies by, which means it's time to select a new feature release for The Horde. As it's my turn to choose, I've selected Temple Nightside's The Hecatomb album from 2016. I stumbled across this Australian band through the review draft and what a find it was! Deep, dark and heavy, and deserving of attention for members of The Horde, The Fallen and The North. I hope others get as much enjoyment out of it as I have.

It would be great to read what you all think of it either below or in review format.

https://metal.academy/releases/23059

Here's my review:

Aussie death metal outfit Temple Nightside seem to have slipped under most Metal Academics’s radars in recent years but a quick Google search will see a lot of extreme metal aficionados harbouring great hope for their 2016 third album “The Hecatomb” given the enormous pedigree of the individuals involved. Vocalist/guitarist Mitchell Keepin has been involved with several noteworthy black metal projects including Austere, Naxzul & Pestilential Shadows while also being the sole member of funeral doom metal act Funeral Mourning, New Zealand-based guitarist Phil Kusabs has spent time with everyone from Diocletian to Qrixkuor to Ulcerate to Vassafor along with having performed live with Canadian war metal godfathers Blasphemy & Russian death/black metal band Pseudogod while bassist Bjorn Rusell is the main man behind highly regarded Aussie doom/death duo Grave Upheaval so there’s an absolute shit-tonne of experience behind the team responsible for “The Hecatomb”. That knowledge doesn’t go to waste here either as the album is absolutely oozing of a deep understanding of what makes death metal so appealing at its most primal level. It’s filthy, it’s brutal, it’s atmospheric & it’s cripplingly dark so it ticks almost all of the boxes that any self-respecting death metal nut might have when going into an underground release. To its credit, these things are combined to produce a consistently engaging, entertaining & high-quality release too.

If you’re looking for an ultra-clinical tech death record with dazzling displays of technical prowess & a super-clean production job then “The Hecatomb” may not be what you’re looking for as Temple Nightside have taken a very different path with their approach here. The production is kept intentionally a little murky in the interest of creating a seriously dark atmosphere that takes the listener well outside of their comfort zone. All of the instruments & melodic themes are still easily discernible though so they’ve done a marvellous job at giving this beast of a record a level of accessibility that not all of the band’s peers are so fortunate to achieve. The cavernous drum sound is worth mentioning as it’s a long way from the clicky triggered sounds that a lot of the death metal scene resorts to by default these days. Keepin’s vocals are very much what you’d expect from a darker modern death metal release in that they’re deep & monstrous but also present themselves with a whispery quality at times which reminds me the delivery of several funeral death metal artists. The wonderful cover artwork is a strikingly apt representation of the sounds you can expect to hear too which is a nice touch.

I’ve noticed Temple Nightside being labelled as a blackened death metal artist on multiple online resources over the last few days but I’m not picking up much in the way of black metal on “The Hecatomb” to tell you the truth. There is however a significant dose of doom on offer though, almost enough to warrant a dual tagging. In fact, many of the doomier moments are amongst of the stronger parts of the album in my opinion, particularly on doom/death monster “Within The Arms Of Nothingness” which is probably my favourite of the six proper songs included, closely followed by “Fortress of Burden & Distress”. Nine minute closer “Charnel Winds” pushes all the way out into funeral doom metal territory & pulls it off with ease too while the three short interludes are a brilliant addition to the unblemished tracklisting, so much so that I’d suggest that they wouldn’t sound out of place on one of the more premium dark ambient releases. The only negative point I will make is that I feel that “Graven” was possibly not the best track to open with. I went into the release with high expectations coming off the back of Ben’s positive feedback but, despite still being an entertaining listen, “Graven” is the track that I find to be the least appealing of the nine on offer so it took me a couple of listens to see my position on “The Hecatomb” reaching its full potential.

The diSEMEBOWLMENT influence Ben picked up on in his review is obvious at times although Temple Nightside don’t explore as wide, twisted & avant-garde array of influences, preferring to harness the more deathly components of their idol’s sound & getting pretty close in terms of atmosphere on occasion too. They possess a similar aesthetic to darker, noisier death metal bands like Antediluvian or fellow Aussies Portal only their more traditional riff structures sit closer to an old school death metal act like Incantation. On paper that sounds like an enticing concoction & the reality is pretty accurate to that description with “The Hecatomb” being a highly rewarding & undeniably professional death metal release that will likely offer plenty of appeal for the genre’s purists through its commitment to a truly graven & deeply atmospheric experience.

4/5

Temple Nightside are a new one on me, but I could tell from the off that this was going to be right up my street. I have made no secret of my love for old-school cavernous death and death doom metal and that is what these guys provide in spades. They seem to have gone all-in on the cavernous atmosphere, looking to funeral doom for inspiration in layering the primordial ooze over their sound. This is so funereal in atmosphere that it sounds like it is being performed by a band who have been buried alive and is seeping up through the earth into the ears of the listener. Drummer Basilysk is a member of reasonably well-known funeral doom band The Slow Death and guitarist/vocalist IV was the sole member of blackened funeral doom project Funeral Mourning, so these guys have an understanding of funeral doom that serves exceedingly well their intention to make The Hecatomb as cavernous-sounding as possible.

Taking their cues from OSDM giants like Autopsy, The Hecatomb combines classy death metal riffs (the opener Graven has an absolute killer of a main riff) with slow, ponderous doom to produce a multi-faceted attack on the listener's eardrums. Although this approach is almost as old as death metal itself, Temple Nightside manage to make The Hecatomb a must-listen by their sheer ability to craft exceptional death metal tunes which, when married with one of the most mouldering and pestilential production jobs ever, results in an album any self-respecting extreme metal fan should be clamouring to get their clammy, hook-clawed mitts onto.

While I do consider this to be one of the best cavernous death metal albums I have heard since Mental Funeral, great as the atmosphere works on the slower sections, I do have some reservations about it's effectiveness on the faster parts, with the muddiness of the production oh-so slightly blunting the onslaught of the death metal blasts to my ears. This, however, is nitpicking of the highest order and I am a bit embarrassed even to have brought it up so, fuck it, forget I mentioned it! 

The Hecatomb is yet another album that so suits my taste that I am getting impatient to join the ranks of The Horde clan proper and truly wonder why it has taken me so many years to really get into death metal.

4.5/5

As an aside, where the fuck do listeners on RYM hear any black metal here? There are comments on the genre voting page for this, bitching that it shouldn't have a funeral doom secondary (which it should) whilst completely ignoring the fact it has a black metal primary despite it containing absolutely fucking zero black metal.

All three of us have stated in our reviews that there's little to no black metal on this release, so it is somewhat shocking that so many RYM members are voting that up. I have to wonder whether they've actually heard the album.

Anyway, I'm stoked that you guys enjoyed this feature as much as I do. I plan to check out more of their discography.

All three of us have stated in our reviews that there's little to no black metal on this release, so it is somewhat shocking that so many RYM members are voting that up. I have to wonder whether they've actually heard the album.

Anyway, I'm stoked that you guys enjoyed this feature as much as I do. I plan to check out more of their discography.

I can only assume that people have voted black metal up solely on the fact that most of the band members have also been in black metal bands, which certainly does beg the question "have these people even listened to this album?" as you so rightly ask, Ben. 

I too will be looking to delve further into Temple Nightside's discography quite soon as this really was exactly my sort of thing.

I shot Bjorn our reviews too & I’m sure he’ll be stoked. He told me that he was personally responsible for the recording, mixing & mastering of the album & he definitely has a knack for creating atmosphere. I was a bit worried when going into the album as it could have gotten awkward if I didn’t like it. I was prepared to simply not review it if that was the case but I’m really glad it wasn’t.

Sonny, Ben & I were waiting for your review as we both knew you’d love this one.

I shot Bjorn our reviews too & I’m sure he’ll be stoked. He told me that he was personally responsible for the recording, mixing & mastering of the album & he definitely has a knack for creating atmosphere. I was a bit worried when going into the album as it could have gotten awkward if I didn’t like it. I was prepared to simply not review it if that was the case but I’m really glad it wasn’t.

Sonny, Ben & I were waiting for your review as we both knew you’d love this one.

Any self-respecting death doom outfit should get on the phone to the guy and book his services, forthwith!

It's not too often that I have reviewed the Horde features, but the mention of diSEMEBOWLMENT caught my eye and I thought "hmm.. maybe there's something here for me this month". An excellent pick from Ben and I am genuinely stoked to have heard it.

FYI Bjorn has done the mastering for the upcoming Neuropath demo compilation CD i.e. my old death metal band. Did a splendid job too just quietly.

I had previously heard The Hecatomb back when it was released. It was another one of those releases that was getting lots of underground praise back when I bothered to try and keep track of new material. Whilst I had played it a couple of times before I recalled none of it going into this revisit which makes me think I most certainly did not give it the attention it deserved at the time.

Aside from being monolithically cavernous, The Hecatomb is perhaps one of the most desolate and bleakly devastating records I have ever heard. Listen to how those drums are deliberately suppressed in the mix to still allow them to have rumbling and at times thunderous impact and then note how the rest of the instrumentation still does not occupy much of front and centre at all. This album is all about the atmosphere. This is not just a bit of atmosphere either, this is the kind of atmosphere that coats the walls of the room as you listen, clogs your throat if you breath in too much of it and clouds your vision if you stand too close.

The riffs here mine the absolute shit of everything around them, spiralling the listener in their dark serpentine majesty, bristling your skin with their dank scales. Hecatomb means an extensive loss of life, historically seen through a great public sacrifice. The ancient Greeks and Romans would sacrifice 100 cattle to the Gods as a “hecatomb”. Based on these nine tracks, I cannot think of any better soundtrack to such events.

Ritualistic in the most solemn manner possible this is an album that delivers exactly what it sets out to do in the first place. Agonisingly heavy and anguish laden from start to finish, The Hecatomb is an extraordinary record. My only grumble being that the first of the three interludes is completely forgettable in the grander scheme of things and for me adds nothing to the record. On the flipside, aside from being the album highlight, final track Charnel Winds is perhaps one of the best closing tracks I have ever heard. It is one of the most immersive pieces of death doom I can recall hearing, period.

5/5

P.S. I agree.  What fucking black metal?

It's unanimous then - this one's a real winner for the features feature!