GOSFORTH – scourge of dark dominion – TAPE

Black Metal – A Fine Day To Die Records

The return after 17 long years of cult Italian black metallers Gosforth is cause for much celebration in the European underground, as their new record ‘Scourge of Dark Dominion’ looks to pick up where ‘Hornlust’ left us in 2006.

‘Ignis Daemonicus’ sets a sinister scene, strange whispers and growls swirl within creeping black ambience before ‘Luciferian Gnosis’ takes us in a twisted direction. It writhes with an atonal dissonance that suffocates the drums and riffs under a smothering atmosphere. When that breaks through, the gloom returns for it. The title track has a more straightforward stomp about it, a purely wrathful piece that concentrates on its core sound before that eerie dakrness creeps back in again on ‘Graced by Flames’. Gosforth don’t just play it straight and true, the sound glides and twists itself to suit the band’s dark purposes. They seem determined to touch on all facets of black metal’s sound, from punishing traditionalism to gloomy atmospherics and occult uneasiness. But is when those points all intertwine, like in the superlative ‘Legion o fthe Adversary’, then you can really grasp how good this record is.

It is always satisfying to see bands doing what Gosforth are doing, putting their own spin onto a well worn genre. Black metal will never die as long as you have bands like Gosforth making albums like ‘Scourge of Dark Dominion’, a work that breathes new life into the corpsepainted body and reanimates it with vibrant darkness. A killer record.