Weekly album: Anaal Nathrakh - In the Constellation of the Black Widow

Anaal Nathrakh - In the Constellation of the Black Widow

2009 / Black metal, Grindcore, Industrial metal

1. In the Constellation of the Black Widow

2. I Am the Wrath of Gods and the Desolation of the Earth

3. More of Fire than Blood

4. The Unbearable Filth of the Soul

5. Terror in the Mind of God

6. So Be It

7. The Lucifer Effect

8. Oil upon the Sores of Lepers

9. Satanarchrist

10. Blood Eagles Carved on the Backs of Innocents

btcarey: A day will come, when man strikes down man with no regard for life, and as the world burns behind him, he will stare into the apocalypse with hands soaked in the blood of his brothers. As he stares into the abyss, this album will play. “In the Constellation of the Black Widow” is the soundtrack to our apocalypse, filled with filth, rage, and utter hate; it pays tribute to the destructive nature of mankind.

Anaal Nathrakh’s style is a manure pit of extreme music forms, forced to breed and mutate, ultimately producing an abomination of industrial-blackened-deathgrind. Consisting of two members, V.I.T.R.I.O.L (Dave Hunt – Vocals) and Irrumator (Mick Kenny – Instruments and Programming), the duo succeeds at producing some of the most aggressive music to date. Irrumator’s writing style is a pure assault on the senses, bombarding the listener with ripping tremolo riffs, heavy grooves, and chaotic leads. The drums are adequately straightforward, having two states: blast and no blast. Even with relatively simple drums, they perfectly suit the aggression and atmosphere of the music, allowing the listener to focus on more important aspects. For example the vocals. V.I.T.R.I.O.L is quite possibly the best vocalist of modern metal. With a huge range, he not only does every style of extreme vocals, but also executes them exceptionally, with a rawness and power unparalleled. Of all the types of vocals plundering your eardrums in “…Constellation…”, one of my favorites are V.I.T.R.I.O.L’s signature frantic-grind-screaming. Showcased in its grueling entirety on “I Am The Wrath Of Gods And The Desolation Of The Earth”, one of my friends compared it to the vocals of “someone getting their arm cut off by a chainsaw”.

Anaal Nathrakh is not a band for the weak of heart or mind. There is nothing deep about their music, no back-stories, no hidden meanings, just pure fucking aggression and hate. If you can’t handle it, don’t listen to it, but if you DO think any of this sounds appealing, ANAAL NATHRAKH IS A MUST!!

Favorite Songs: “So Be It”, “Satanarchrist” 

Orostider: Anaal Nathrakh is one of the bands I've always been recommended to listen to. Their name has always been pretty intriguing in my opinion, but the few random songs I've heard before this haven't ignited the flame inside me. Black/grind is a fusion I probably should like, but the mix can be executed in a good or bad way. Unfortunately, Anaal Nathrakh leans to the bad side.

'In the Constellation...' is not a bad album and I do understand why people are into it, but for me this isn't how I like to be served some tasty black/grind. Instead of being evenly balanced between black and grind like The Secret or black metal influenced grindfest, 'In the Constellation...' is a blend of somewhat melodic black and death metal and mediocre grindcore. The combination actually works pretty well in 'More of Fire Than Blood', but sometimes it simultaneously sounds like an utter mess and cheesy melo-something. There are some sweet riffs, almost in every song actually, but the songs fail to keep steady quality. 

I've heard people argument both for and against the vocals of Anaal Nathrakh. I myself lean to the for side in this matter, as I'm a huge fan of their noisecore influenced vocals. And like I already told that 'More of Fire Than Blood' is actually a solid song, the use of clean vocals actually works magnificently on it. The worst thing about their vocals is the occasionally utterly disgraceful timing of them. They probably did them like they wanted, but for example the first song's high shrieks and the chorus of the second song sound so awfully out of place. The songs shouldn't be trashed because of those parts, but they are definitely among the weakest spots of the album.

Favourite song: 'More of Fire Than Blood'

tp5170: There was actually a period of time when I was actually rather interested in Anaal Nathrakh (AN). This was after seeing the band play live at a festival and me being impressed by the intense performance they were able to put up. The enthusiasm towards the band died pretty quickly though and I didn’t really manage to get emotionally attached to any of their records except for one, - In the Constellation of the Black Widow which is the only album of theirs I regularly return to.

I think it’s the pure absurdity of this particular album that draws me back to re-listen to it every once in a while as “In the Constellation of the Black Widow” manages to strike a delicate balance between it sounding really cheesy and really harsh/raw. The band’s use of vocals seem often to get praised and in my opinion at least on this album rightfully so. It’s the vocals that really bring the album alive and those do really sound surprisingly distorted and at some points even reach the level of insanity. 

Honestly I have to say that the whole album is a rather solid set with maybe a couple of exceptional tracks as there is something really engaging about “Satanarchrist” and “The Lucifer Effect”, for me at least. I guess the only problem for me with the album or with the particular band in general is that it’s just so over the top, blasting away full speed all the time that I kind of get exhausted towards the end of the set. Of course ‘In the Constellation of the Black Widow’ isn’t that long so I guess that it’s not that much of an issue in this case, but in general that’s kind of off putting.

Kattroll: I first meant to listen to the album as a background music and take a closer look and listen to it again, but I'm not sure if I want to do so anymore. The album begins with quite a racket which stays present almost throughout the whole album. Somewhat boring, but it suffices. Occasionally the album goes to awful metalcore vibes and in a bad way ear ripping vocals. At those moments the album suffices no more and I only wonder why do I even bother listening to this. Anaal Nathrakh was only familiar to me by name before this, but now I know I haven't missed anything of value. The album does have couple of solid moments, especially instrument-wise, but I sadly can't say that this is a masterpiece at all. 34 minutes and 39 seconds. Thank goodness it wasn't any longer.