(written by Islander)
As their name signifies, the Belgian black metal band Pox draw their inspiration from the history of plague and disease in northwestern Europe, but they also find inspiration in the obscure and often bleak folklore of the same region, more often than not connecting with pre-Christian archetypes and heathen concepts.
The music of Pox has been presented through a pair of EPs, a split with the Dutch band Heretic, and a live album. In July of this year they will have a new EP released by Void Wanderer Productions — their first new music in almost a decade. The name of the EP is B.K.W. — which stands for “Brass Knuckle Witchcraft“. Void Wanderer provides this description:
The fundaments of POX’s music are firmly rooted in traditional, first and second wave black metal. Often served in mesmerizing midtempos, the black metal base is spiced up with an injection of wild, punkish aggression. This combination results in a stripped down yet hyper effective brand of metal. Regressive but original, coarse and harsh but sharp as a rusty razor, the POX formula has proven its effect on carefully selected crowds throughout the years.
Void Wanderer also characterizes Pox’s mission statement: “to create the foulest, most rancid, vintage as fuck black metal possible”.
The new EP includes four new original songs, plus a cover version of the track “Blackened (The circle complete)“, that appeared originally on the 2000 album The devil and the whore by the Canadian black metal band Megiddo. What we have for you today, as a test of Void Wanderer’s preview words, is one of those four original songs, “To Greifswald!“.
This is a sinister and seditious song for sure. Mid-paced in its momentum, it proceeds with bowel-loosening thuds and steady rocking beats, and spins out riffing that fiendishly blares and menacingly snarls. The gritty, ravenous vocals are equally devilish — and more openly hostile.
The riffing also frighteningly sizzles, swarms, and soars, returns to that visceral, blaring throb, and seems to miserably wail as the beats slow (interspersed with fast, exhilarating fills). But the band continue up-shifting and down-shifting the pace, while throwing out one riff after another, and spiking the music with a deliriously screaming guitar solo.
The vocals are fanatical and hateful through and through, but the riffing viscerally channels a variety of feral and fraught moods in ways that prove to be diabolically infectious. “A stripped down yet hyper effective brand of metal”? That’s the damn truth about this song:
B.K.W. was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Lander at Studio Hearse. Void Wanderer will release it on CD on July 23rd, and recommends it for fans of: Khold, Megiddo, Kringa, Bathory, Häxenzijrkell, and Grafjammer.
PRE-ORDER:
https://voidwanderer.com/product/pox-b-k-w-cd-preorder/