Handful of Hate "Vicecrown" CD
[Code666]
Fast and precise black metal from Italy with sneering vocals, lots of speed, and a fairly clean, modern sound. It's really nothing new musically or lyrically, but the design work here is fucking splendid. Of course the muddy corpsepainted band photos aren't really helping, granted they're 10 times better than most, but everything else is slick. The front cover has a chained torso with a pentagram carved into the back of the neck and is fairly minimal, but everything else is much more colorful and violent. Images of knives, corpses, bloody bodybags, collaged newspaper headlines, etc. Very artistically visualized. The lyrics are along similar lines often blending a sort of ritualistic violence/sex sort of thing, and I'm not into that, but whatever. As far as the songwriting goes, it's basically typical for this style. They're not going for the raw and primal style at all, so expect wicked vocal screams mixed deep in against the music, lots of tremolo picked riffs with a little bit of dissonance infused into some of the chords, etc. Thankfully most of the tracks run around three minutes, maybe five tops, so they don't beat you over the head time and time again with a bunch of overkill. "Boldly Erected" is darker, manipulating slower tempos with spiraling discordant riffing and completely indecipherable vocal snarls. When they emphasize speed, even in focused and succinct cuts like "Vexer's Kult", I'm pleased with the tightness of the playing, but generally the writing is uninteresting to me as it's all a blur of speed with no sensation of feeling. "Catharsis in Punishment" is another slower track that has a totally different style of rhythm to it, making it stick out from the other songs quite a bit with more of a thrashy gallop to the pacing. Very unusual. As far as this style, I don't particularly mind the recording. It's actually pretty good. The bass is lacking, but the guitars are clear without being razor sharp, the vocals don't dominate, and though a little clicky the drums are kept in check very well. It's a good sounding session. But, as mentioned, the songwriting is nothing to write home about. It's a decent disc with a handful of good tracks, but to me it's something that only diehard fans of the genre would have a true interest in. (6/10)
Running time - 34:55, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Boldly Erected, Hierarch in Lust]
Code666 - http://www.code666.net

This review has been displayed 1958 times.