Bearer of the Darkest Plagues

Philadelphia's Blasphemous play a basic, raw form of Black Metal mixed with a pinch of old school Death Metal. There's nothing fancy on this album, in fact it's pretty barebones and one-dimensional, kind of dirty-sounding (in a good way) and it emits a very dark vibe from beginning to end. It's not doomy, but it's pretty fucking dark and depressive at times. The rasps are barely intelligible (or not at all), sometimes sounding like barks and only enhance the already vile vibe of the music. The grinding raw sound is surprisingly interrupted at times by very melodic passages which while also raw are the closest thing to any "fancy" playing here. There are some thrashy parts popping up here and there that remind me a bit of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost, but overall this is purely and simply a very decent slab of old school Black Metal delivered with a twist.