Black metal has come a very long way from the first and second wave to the current and underground side of things. Meet Black Funeral, a black metal and dark ambient project who’s been making the most vampiric, diabolical, Luciferian style of black metal music since their formation in 1993. Now on Iron Bonehead Productions, Scourge Of Lamashtu is the latest offering and is the follow-up to 2016’s Ankou and the Death Fire which really seemed to capture the essence and nature of their wonderfully crafted and symbolic hybrid of extreme music to a whole new level. Musically, Black Funeral reminded me a cross between Drowning The Light, Leviathan, Judas Iscariot and Drawing Down the Moon era of Beherit due to its simplistic, destructive and chaotically driven arrangements have never sounded this appealing as far I’m concerned.
There’s songs anywhere ranging from its raw, gritty and blasphemous signatures written all over the place while the album introduces ritual ambiance that gives the atmospheric passages a nice sense of melody, sound and touch without losing its natural identity. Tracks such as Scourge of Lamashtu (She Who Strangles the Lamb), Pazuzu King of the Lilu-Demons and Nergal (Lord Who Prowls by Night) gives the listener a agitated, frightened,and blistered dosages of heavy guitar riffage, solid blast beats, nice bass tone and vocals provide a tearing, claustrophobic and howling ranges to create a fantastic, stellar, stylistic and creative album’s that not only Black Funeral have made in their long-run career, but any fans of underground black metal with a fascinating display of ambient here and there, Scourge Of Lamashtu is a 38 minute onslaught journey that’ll give you fine taste test to appreciate the everlasting quality from these hard-working Texans.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
