(written by Islander)
The German duo Barbaric Oath made their truly barbaric debut with a three-song demo in 2024 accurately named Attack Attack Attack!, and on March 27th of this year they’ll have their debut EP Sword, Sorcery, Vengeance released by Caligari Records.
As you might guess from the EP’s title, the songs thematically focus on fantasy from ’70s and ’80s cult films, as well as role-playing games like Heroquest. But the music isn’t what most people would imagine as “sword and sorcery” metal. For example, it’s about as far away from power metal as you could get. Instead, it’s a gutting, gouging, thunderously bone-breaking, and vocally unhinged attack of blackened death metal — “a sound more akin to the likes of Finland’s Belial, Mythos, and early Bolt Thrower” (to quote from the PR materials).
What we’ve got for you today is the premiere of “Sword and Sorcerer”, the second song to be revealed from the EP so far — and it’s likely to get all your nerves firing on full auto.
In this song the tremolo’d riffing generates a dense and mercilessly malicious churn, a frothing whirlpool (or a blizzard) of abrasive sound that’s as suffocating as it is caustic. In part because that assault is so ravenously all-consuming, the drums stand out immediately because of their skull-cracking and gut-loosening clarity and the dynamism of their progressions. The maniacally screaming vocals stand out too — because they’re both bestial and violently berserk.
And yet although the guitar sounds are dense and down-tuned, and the hurtling bass-lines enormously heavy, the movements aren’t completely obscured. Within the churn the riffs maniacally writhe, roil, and dart, and they both dismally fall and also soar toward increasingly higher zeniths of violent ecstasy, in tandem with vocals that arc from horrid roars to throat-ripping shrieks.
The music also belligerently blares, as if manifesting the haughtiness of a diabolical lord, but there is never any relent nor any mercy in the murderous (but thoroughly electrifying) violence of the attack.
As mentioned, this is the second song to be released so far from the album. The first one, “Bestial Witchery“, brings out the sword-and-sorcery inspirations in its brief overture, but then explodes in another exhilarating display of ravaging riffage, brute-force bass assaults, thrilling percussive tumult, and vocal extremity that’s both monstrous and crazed.
In this one, the bass also gets an opportunity to gnaw your bones as the drums rattle away in the background, and by the end, the song descends to hopeless depths of crushing despair.
Sword, Sorcery, Vengeance includes three more songs besides these, for a total of 21 minutes of barbarity. Caligari Records will release it on CD and cassette tape formats, as well as digitally.
PRE-ORDER:
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/sword-sorcery-vengeance
BARBARIC OATH:
https://www.instagram.com/barbaricoath.dm