(Our Norway-based contributor Chile prepared the following vivid review of Hexekration Rites‘ debut album Misanthropic Path of Carnal Deliverance, released last week by Godz Ov War Productions.)
First things first. The listening process is never a straightforward one. There comes an album occasionally that you’d listen to once or twice, shrug and move on. Maybe you’d give it one more chance. Or not. And then sometimes comes along an album that commands your attention on the very first listen. Like putting a spell on you, stopping the thing that you’re doing. This is that album.
The French marauders in Hexekration Rites have been around for some seven years now and it says a lot about a band when it gets high praise years before them even thinking of releasing a full-length debut. Exactly this happened with their demo release and the first EP Desekration Manifesto, both getting some downright carnal love here on No Clean Singing. A recommended read and a listen, surely.
With the last year’s two-song EP Gathering the Disciples serving as a taste of things to come, the band finally unleashed their debut Misanthropic Path of Carnal Deliverance on April 25th courtesy of Godz ov War Productions, a Polish label known for their high-quality roster of savage bands treading the encroaching twilight between black and death metal.
Appropriately, two barbaric flails meeting at the intersection of our civilized brain stems successfully making a bloodied mess, depicted on Chris Moyen’s relatively simple, yet quite effective graphical solution for the cover art, is exactly what one should expect going into this album.
Marching drums take us into the “Ouverture”, which possesses almost a Basil Poledouris quality to it, with the hammering of guitars announcing the arrival of riders of doom on their misanthropic path.
Diving straight into “The Grimoire of Insanity” the band sets the controls for the heart of darkness, never stopping to look back or to slow down for a breather. This is certainly not music for the faint of heart, for the forces of chaos summoned from this grimoire beckon us with a thousand horrors and a rarely felt urgency.
“The Seal of Annihilation” continues the relentless attack on the senses, with the prominent bass being a highlight of the album as a whole. If we could draw comparisons, think of faster parts of Aosoth’s wonderful album Arrow in Heart, but with a hefty dose of death metal included in the mix.
The comparison with Aosoth holds maybe because they’re both French bands, but more likely because they both have an ethereal connection to the suffocating darkness channeling its strength through their songs.
This comes into view especially on the “Apocalyptic Sermon” which could be the best song on the album, but with competition being so good, everyone will have their own favourite. Arkyon’s bass and vocals are rumbling like a storm over the sea of guitars, taking over the initiative and then ripping a new hole in this second-hand dimension of ours, letting the abyssal void straight in.
More contenders for the best song come in form of, well, the furious “Revealing the Transcendent Fury” and the absolutely demonic “Bestial Rites of Doom,” which lives up to its name by being a devastating mangler of a song twisting and turning through some of the thickest riffs laid down on track by the guitarist C.S. accompanied with the absolute joy of Aryth’s ride-cymbal acrobatics.
The back-end of the album naturally makes no intention of taking it nice and easy, so “Canticle for Primal Absolution” and “The Last Priest of Damnation” step right in as if seeking vengeance, raising their swords to the call of the flesh with the latter being the more direct and more destructive one (a hard task, surely).
“Disciple” concludes this path by burning everything down along the way, rampaging and desecrating without mercy and nothing to fear. Hexekration Rites pulls out all the stops on this one and we, the listeners, are rewarded with a masterful performance of a band so sure in their craft, that through their sheer power, we are all turned into disciples ready to serve.
In the end, this one needs to be played loud and often. You could call it primal, you could call it barbaric, but whatever you call it, it remains a towering achievement of bludgeoning, face-melting metal. With albums like this, we are in good hands for the foreseeable future and 2025 continues to be another fantastic year in metal, and with more than eight months remaining, there is plenty to come.
Misanthropic Path of Carnal Deliverance is out on April 25th on Godz ov War Productions in all available formats. Orders for the record and all related merchandise are possible via label and Bandcamp stores.
https://www.facebook.com/HexekrationRites/
https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/misanthropic-path-of-carnal-deliverance
https://godzovwar.com/shop/en/