Anyone with even the vaguest of Biblical knowledge will know Herod as the king who commanded that all newborns be slain on learning of Jesus’ birth, and while historical evidence suggests this may be inaccurate, his reputation and renown as a rule of extravagance and great brutality has endured and broadly accepted as fact. It’s fitting, then, that the Swiss foursome should evoke the Roman ruler in their chosen moniker.
‘They Were None’ opens a devastating sludge-metal trudge that clocks in just shy of 10 minutes. Entitled ‘The Fall’ is could well be the soundtrack to the fall of man, or Satan’s ejection from heaven in ‘Paradise Lost.’ It’s dark and brutal, which is pretty much how you could reasonably describe this megalithic slab of anger.
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‘Northern Lights’ and the almost delicate ‘We Are the Failure’ change the tempo and texture rather, enormous, rolling works that stretch out to the sky before bringing it all down in a deluge of guitar-driven savagery. Dark, rumbling atmospherics punctuate the doom-laden sonic inferno, but ultimately, this is a bleak and harrowing affair.
Herod Online
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