Fange - Pantocrator (2021)^{Release ID: 27125}

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Industrial Metal, maybe because I work in an engineering factory and have the dubious pleasure of listening to mechanical noise all day and so Industrial Metal feels a bit too much like work! For me the best kind of industrial music isn't totally alienating, but also has some humanity to it and I think Fange achieve that here with the sludge and death metal elements working in synergy with the industrial. The hot-blooded passion of the sludge metal vocals provide a searing counterpoint to the coldness of the machine-like death metal riffs. These death industrial riffs are also overlaid with atmospheric sludge lead work that once more lends it a more human face and the layers help to build an interesting atmosphere that speaks of resistance to the inevitable that is yet tinged with a fatalistic futility, anger and self-loathing.

This all makes for an album that is extremely heavy and confrontational and may not be to every industrial fans taste - this isn't Rammstein or Fear Factory, there are no melodic hooks to hang on to, in fact it has quite a negative atmosphere derived from it's sludge metal roots. It is quite short though, comprising just two 15 minute tracks and this definitely works in it's favour as it doesn't allow time to become jaded with the relentless pessimism and crushing heaviness of it's riffing. All in all this has got to be one of my favourite industrial releases of recent years so if you like industrial metal with a bit of sullen intensity then I would strongly recommend Pantocrator.