Album Review: Theotoxin – Fragment: Totenruhe (AOP Records)

Hailing from the catacombs of Vienna, Austria, Theotoxin will release their brand-new album ‘Fragment: Totenruhe’, their second under the banner of AOP Records, on October 28th, 2022.

With icy-cold instrumentation and howling vocals, Theotoxin make an undeniably bleak first impression with World, Burn for Us. Unleashing the sound of hellish winter and unending darkness with a refined, but raw sounding slice of old-school blackness. It’s wild but nowhere as wild as the feral Catastrophe in Flesh is. Theotoxin hitting levels of ruthless heaviness not heard so far.

Call that the starting gun for carnage as Towards the Chasm shows the band are beginning to hit their immense stride on this album. The weight of the instruments is startling but this is also a track that oozes atmosphere. The change in tempo just makes things sound all the eviller and the drift into melody at the end is unexpected but welcome.

Forget about melody with Demise of the Gilded Age though as Theotoxin spit fire and brimstone in a thrilling and rhythmic way. The vocals are immensely wicked here. Before After Thousands of Years throws all semblance of order away in favour of a blistering blast of intense instrumentation, and Perennial Lunacy sees the band deliver something tailor-made for the live environment. The demonic hordes will lap this one up hungrily.

As will anyone willing to subject their mind, body and soul to the horror that is …Of Rapture and Dissolution and Totenruhe. Where the darkness pours out of Theotoxin’s melodies, ensuring the shifts are as dark and dangerous sounding as when they unleash a torrent of abuse. Something they do with a scandalous amount of glee.

The icing on the cake? A blistering cover of Marduk’s Frontschwein. Take that, black metal naysayers.

Theotoxin – Fragment: Totenruhe Full Track Listing:

1. World, Burn for Us
2. Catastrophe in Flesh
3. Towards the Chasm
4. Demise of the Gilded Age
5. After Thousands of Years
6. Perennial Lunacy
7. …Of Rapture and Dissolution
8. Totenruhe
9. Frontschwein (Marduk Cover)

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