Album Review: Ba’alzamon – A Desolate Place (Self Released)

Ba’alzamon are Curtis Fitzpatrick, Marc Williams and Rob Anderson. Formed in 1998, they began playing live in and around the Little Rock metal scene in 1999, with a rotating lineup of additional musicians. Mired in a scene dominated by Southern Sludge, Ba’alzamon’s unique blend of Black and Traditional Death Metal stood apart both in sound and performance.

Ba’alzamon’s unbridled energy could not be sustained forever and in around 2001 the band finally split up, with members going on to other music and stage projects. However, the main core of Fitzpatrick, Williams and Anderson maintained a close friendship that, in 2017, served to bring them back together to record their first full-length album. This project would expand into the double length A Desolate Place (2019). Featuring the best songs from Ba’alzamon’s original run as well as several new tracks. A Desolate Place is the recording that finally sees Ba’alzamon’s vision of Ozark Mountain Metal fully realized.

An album weighted in blackened death metal, this is one of those releases that you cursed passed you by. Dripping in darkness, treading stinking and fetid noise with every step and layered with haunting and interesting atmospheres. It’s an all surrounding listen that embraces the listener tightly, sucking the warmth out of the body.

There will nothing but a dry husk come the end.

It is absolutely worth it though as Ba’alzamon take us on an ambitious journey fraught with dangers and horrifying experiences. From the dizzying heights of A Vow of Celestial Fealty to the gut-wrenching depths that Through the Ashes of Eden takes us too. A pair of tracks that are simply sublime, the latter’s guitar riffs and soloing enough to make you drop to your knees and thank the gods for Ba’alzamon.

There isn’t a track that is lacking here. Not a single moment when you’re not sitting in awe of what twisted beauty Ba’alzamon have crafted here. Later, the splendour of Empire of the Dead and magnificent darkness of Quest for the Twelfth Sphere of Amaroth all but make this one of the best albums released in 2019.

Curse that it passed you by and make sure you rectify that issue now.

Ba’alzamon – A Desolate Place Full Track Listing:

1. Heathens of the Blackest Fold
2. A Vow of Celestial Fealty
3. Through the Ashes of Eden
4. There Was No Blood
5. Eternal, Eclipsed, and Enslaved
6. Empire of the Dead
7. Knights of Soth
8. Trapped in Flesh
9. Quest for the Twelfth Sphere of Amaroth
10. Self Control (with Becca Blackmore)

Links

Bandcamp