Review by Ben for Temple Nightside - The Hecatomb (2016)

Temple Nightside were completely unknown to me prior to picking The Hecatomb for this month's Horde Review Draft (apart from noting the great artwork on this album's cover while adding it to the site). I'm so very grateful for the introduction, as this is way up my alley. I'm most attracted to death metal when it's dark as fuck and sounds like it was created by demons in the bowels of hell. Well that's exactly what we have here! With a really organic sounding production (particularly the drums, which I love) and growled echoing vocals that feel like they're coming out of the music rather than being placed on top of it, I find myself reminded of the legendary disEMBOWELMENT, despite Temple Nightside leaning far more into the blasting death metal spectrum. If that comparison seems odd, given this is listed as a death / black metal album, I personally think it contains much more doom than black, and disEMBOWELMENT were one of the few death doom bands that actually contained legitimate death metal. The riffs on The Hecatomb are also incredibly dark and heavy, not to mention memorable and genuinely effective, making this album one of the finds of the year for me. The fact that Temple Nightside, like disEMBOWELMENT, hail from my home country, make it just a bit sadder that I haven't discovered them until now. It's exciting to see that they have three other albums and an EP to sink my teeth into.