(We present DGR‘s review of the newest album from the Polish titans Hate, which is set for release this coming Friday, May 2nd, by
Metal Blade Records.)
Poland’s Hate have been a musical monolith for blackened death metal for over two decades now. They’ve become a lighthouse by which you can orient yourself, ever fixed upon land and as steady as the world could allow it to be. With thirteen albums in their arsenal, Adam and the crew of the machine named Hate have been one of, if not the most reliable sources of extreme metal around for a long time. While erecting an unscalable wall of imperial riffs and relentless double-bass drumming, they have also become a gateway into the wider expanse of the dark arts.
Hate have stayed rigidly true to their formula, such that you could pull any album post-Anaclasis from their discography and use it as a guide into blackened death metal for anyone willing to take the plunge. Few have ever attempted the sort of fiery riff work that Hate build their music out of, and because of that there’s been little reason for the group to ever shift. Hate don’t do massive artistic evolution: the Hate you see now was a Hate set in stone a while ago, already concrete and recognizable. What Hate do now is to iterate on their sound, such that there’ve been a few distinct three-to-four album arcs over the course of their career.
Photo Credit: Mariusz Kowal
The recent three-pack up until now have all drawn heavily from mysticism and slavic mythology for their subject matter, divorcing themselves from the galactic nihilism of Crusade: Zero many years ago. Prior to that the group had some truly black metal years under their belts, vanguards alongside other musical compatriots who saw power in the theatricality of black metal but also the brutality of death metal and the fusing of the two. The guitar-melting and shred-heavy work defined the Anaclasis through Solarflesh run, a weird golden period for the band where they fully established what it meant to be Hate in their current incarnation.
Which is how we begin our approach to their thirteen album Bellum Regiis: Does it make itself the beginning of a new arc? An in-between beast unto its own? Or is it sidling right up alongside its last three siblings to construct a four-album run of madness?
Over the years, Hate have dabbled in music that tilted heavily into a ritualistic atmosphere. Though the band themselves aren’t prone to the spectacle of fully dressing up, the music suggested at times that they themselves were the robed figures summoned by the music that was put forth. Solarflesh was an album like this, after three releases of knife-sharp and fiery music – with one real brawny house-wrecker in between in Erebos. Hate leaned hard on the mysticism side of things and, coupled with a lot of war drums and backing singers, Solarflesh emerged.
Interestingly, it seems as if that is the case again with Hate‘s newest album Bellum Regiis. We’ve had three incredibly sleek and blade-sharp albums, with zero pretense and a whole quarry’s worth of blastbeats excavated, and now we are once again at an album that leans hard on the ritualistic side of things. Well, as hard as Hate can anyway, because again, we’re discussing the unmoving pillar that is Hate; a space elevator collapsing couldn’t even take this group’s style down.
Evidence presented: the opening song and titular “Bellum Regiis” itself going full epic and soaring on the highs of a sung-vocal section and note progression that would make Gaerea jealous before transitioning into the hammering rhythms of a classic Hate song. The opener being one of the longest songs on the album isn’t a joke – it is the one carving the path and leaving the trail of footfalls that the rest of the disc follows. Near everything is planted here and the eight songs that follow are what grows behind it. Reliably, Hate are never too far from a gigantic guitar section and a drum part so immensely heavy it could crush a city.
Perhaps feeling as if they had a little room to expound upon their sound a bit, Hate do slow things down for a big old knuckle-dragging chug-fest in the form of “Iphigenia”. Exhortations abound of hero-worship and sacrifice but musically this is a song that could turn asphalt into a fine powder. After two to three albums that existed at mostly breakneck tempo, maybe Hate felt that it had been some time since they’d had a real dumb one to offer up for sacrifice?
Hate haven’t memorably rumbled this hard since the days of Crusade: Zero and its song “Leviathan”. Fitting then, that one seems to be constantly hovering around the fringes of Hate‘s live setlists and it would be easy to see “Iphigenia” and its many lyrical calls and responses becoming a mainstay as well. It’s probably the biggest case of musical tempo whiplash you’ll see on Bellum Regiis as well. Things are a little bit more steady after this, and truthfully, favor the faster side of things but present interesting moments of their own in response.
Where the poking and prodding of the Hate formula during the early parts of Bellum Regiis works in the album’s favor is in its third song, which has quickly become an early highlight of the album. “The Vanguard” is built with quick-moving tempo but a surprisingly melodic guitar lead pops up and quickly immolates itself for only the briefest of seconds. Time and time again it is resurrected only to go down in a musical pyre throughout the six minutes comprising “The Vanguard”, but it would be a falsehood to not view it as increasingly hypnotic each time it happens. It is the third of four six-minute-plus songs and while it playfully hints at something more grandiose in scale – backing war horns quickly shot to smithereens in the introductory segment – it is the cycle back to that early guitar lead that keeps interest high throughout each bludgeoning passage.
The brief moment of self-plagiarism that follows in “A Ghost Of Lost Delight”, in which Hate break out a favored stuttering guitar rhythm, is all the more surprising given just how adventurous the band had seemed just mere moments before. “A Ghost Of Lost Delight” is the first time where Bellum Regiis feels like a song is running a little long, as it is the darker and more immense twin of “Iphegenia” by a whopping thirty seconds yet still somehow feels like it is stretching a bit so that Hate could get one more room-filling guitar beating in there. The slow one-two/response with a double bass pedal steadily roiling behind it is a hallmark of Hate‘s sound but it is also one that it seemed like the group were willing to not have pop up on every album.
The reasoning for all those beefy songs up front is interesting as there isn’t a real song style song on Bellum Regiis that isn’t in the high-fours or fives. “A Ghost Of Lost Delight” gives way to the one interstitial bit in the war drums of “The Rite Of Triglav” for a minute or so, and it is here where it seems like Hate are resurrecting the ghosts of past albums. Songs get much shorter in the moments that follow, almost as if Hate themselves recognized that building an intermission into their own album actually wasn’t a bad idea. It’s difficult not to get excited when there’s war drums in play though, with the song following being the immediate beneficiary. “Perun Rising”, as a result, is practically another addition to the six-minute pile on its own with the way the two combine.
The musical continuation of the “Arkhen” song branch is also an interesting development. Last mentioned on Auric Gates Of Velis and the song “Path To Arkhen”, Hate conjure spirits through the fog again, and through them speak the new song “Prophet Of Arkhen” – laying late in wait on the tracklisting for Bellum Regiis. After a wall of six-minute songs, Bellum Regiis closing on a group of four-and-a-half-minute ones is almost petite. Hate bring back that sort of knife-sharp yet still filled to the brim style of song that has been the defining trait of their trilogy of discs beginning with Tremendum way back in 2017.
“Prophet Of Arkhen” is the bearer of many an interesting rhythm riff and bass guitar chug as well, battling up to the surface a few times, though Hate have been a band that moves completely in sync at times. No one really has the infernal spotlight for too long in a Hate song and everyone is moving in favor of making the mechanism as a whole appear absolutely massive. Hate have been a four-piece for their career but musically have managed to sound like an army on the march every time.
So where does that leave Bellum Regiis then in regard to its siblings? Weirdly enough, at a halfway point. It’s tempting to treat this as the ritualistic follower to a trilogy of albums in the way Solarflesh was, but in reality the front half is the real example of that, with the back half of Bellum Regiis being far more in Hate‘s recent comfort zone. This is an album that oscillates hard in the beginning and then finds even-keel post-intermission segment for an experience more akin to a solid musical Hate run.
Like many of Hate‘s releases, there are some absolute standouts in both the front and back halves; Bellum Regiis does well especially in that regard. This is music that passes between being ruthlessly efficient and immensely grand, but all is still in service of Hate‘s brand of blackened death brutality. One could easily spend time begging for more songs in favor of tracks like “The Vanguard”, but still, Bellum Regiis is an album in which most of its music is already perfectly positioned.
It’s hard to imagine Hate setting out to do much more than make a good Hate album. They’ve become as much mood and overall atmospheric vibe as they have a purveyor of music. You can throw Hate‘s whole discography on and be powered through a week by auditory force. Bellum Regiis stacks well in the overall Hate discography, its musical experimentation appreciated just as much as when Hate decide to settle down to brass tacks and just volley forth pummeling rhythm after pummeling rhythm. Either way, there’s still going be a crater in the Earth big enough that it could be turned into a lake when Hate are done.
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