Teitanblood is more kvlt than you. I mean, how many other bands can say their logo was sported on artwork for a Darkthrone album? Since slithering out of nothingness in 2003, one full-length after another have solidified their reputation as one of the prominent peddlers of darkness. Are they bestial death metal? Deathened black metal? Melodic war metal? They don’t care, and don’t care what you call them; they are only here to remind you that in the end, only death is real. With an average release gap of five years, they have arrived after an unprecedented six from previous album The Baneful Choir, with nary a split or demo between releases. Such time tenderizing their newest aural offering has not gone to waste, as this album is from abyssal depths indeed.
From the Visceral Abyss offers up a production for which “claustrophobic” doesn’t begin to do it justice. An eldritch paradox of sound, the entirety of the album exists to savage you with razor-sharp riffs which seem to crawl from the ectosplasmic ocean of density and aural obfuscation. The vocals of NSK emerge with reverb-soaked into their pores, transcending “merely” cavernous echoes into wretchedly human tones that fill the air around the listener with menace. The ever-violent drumming of J brings the customary sixteenth-note-styled battering, but also finds pockets to fill during the more ambient, threatening moments of relative calm. “Sepulchral Carrion God” shows this stylistic blending in all its horror, ranging from militant bass drum lashings to creative, engaging cymbal-based beats and on-a-dime time signature shifts. The DR, while not exactly awe-inspiring, allows for the clarity of each instrument to complement and go to war with each other simultaneously, rendering the music a seething, perpetually scathing cauldron of sound.
From the Visceral Abyss by Teitanblood
Teitanblood have stated that their approach to songcraft is to “seek the point where death and black metal are not differenced.” Churning, all-out blasting assaults ebb and flow into crushing riffs and back with indecipherable, mercurial transitions. Guitar leads shift between borderline atonal fret-tapping freneticism (“From the Visceral Abyss”) to almost melodic, weeping melodies (“Strangling Visions”), with passages always ready to collapse into the next hazy attack. Some blasts focus on snare abuse, some in double time fills; still others find drums pairing back for guitarist Javi Bastard to violate the listener with weeping whammy bar abuse before sliding into more devastating runs. What would be a bland, uniform tone of violence in the hands of a lesser band is transformed into its own diverse, engaging creature where speed never gives way to homogenization, and repetition is never confused for power.
Still, even the ethereal realm is subjected to the might of the riff, and From the Visceral Abyss is no exception. The handful of slower moments allows for some rare tidings of moshable might with groove to rock the shadows themselves. “And Darkness was All” is the most Death-centric song, with a main riff worthy of crushing skulls bookending the blast furnace raging to be found within. Slow half-time chugging comes as a welcome reprieve and lets J show off his rhythmic skills. Additionally, the entirety of the album is meant to be heard as one continuous flow, with atmospherics, ambience, and sounds reminiscent of Spektr’s Near Death Experience linking one song to the next before ending on a damned choir of an orchestral note. This is not an album for listener comfort, channeling borderline war-metal straightforwardness into atmospheres that exist to give you plenty of time to breathe, but absolutely never to rest.
Teitanblood are the sound of the void staring back into you. A two-tone palette of hazy blasts into a menacing groove should be inherently limited by nature, and yet the abyss continues. Each release explores new pockets of pitch black in the most abandoned of unholy caverns, and From the Visceral Abyss is no exception. This is not an album to consume or enjoy, but to be swallowed up by and surrender to. A singular body of work with riffs for days and horrors for decades, no minute is wasted and no tone gives in to the light. Such a deeply committed portrayal of writhing darkness will be too much for some ears, but those who have drank from the seven chalices will find themselves gleefully at home in this abyss among the baneful choir, with only death for company.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Norma Evangelium Diaboli
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: March 28, 2025
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