Review by Felix on September 2, 2024.

This magical style called black metal has a lot of different faces and most of them are exciting. Most of them, but not all. Unfortunately, Barathrum’s new album Überkill shows a simply boring facet of the genre. The dominance of slow-to-mid-paced rhythms and the fact that outstanding guitar lines are a rare asset here lead to disappointing result. And I may not forget to mention another significant weakness of the release. It lacks atmosphere. The dry state-of-the-art production makes the songs sound heavy and steely, but do not expect just one iota of gruesome, mystic, or haunting elements. The result is an album that does not know what it stands for – regardless of the fact that a few tracks have some good, sometimes fast-paced sequences ('Spark Plugs Of Purgatory', for instance).

Don’t get me wrong, mid-tempo mostly indicates a lack of intensity (and that is definitely the case here), but it does not ruin an album per se. Furthermore, it would surely be the wrong approach to look for high-velocity outbursts from a “black/doom metal” combo. Anyway, Fanatiko was pretty intensive, and Okkult, to give but one example, also did not pass by like an express train. But it had a great, diabolic artwork, a couple of its songs had an almost hypnotic touch and indeed, the album spread occult vibes. In a nutshell, the album offered a coherent overall impression. Überkill is not able to do so. The partly mediocre songwriting meets pretty uninspired vocals. Demonos Sova does not deliver a totally bad performance, there is a certain dose of malignancy in his voice. Nevertheless, he sounds like he is not following his passion, but doing a job.

From time to time Barathrum feel fine with offering a few speedy rhythms (the partly Swedish death metal compatible 'Ritual Murder'), but the guitar lines and the arrangement of the song leave room for optimization. Okay, at its end they create a more or less proper form of spooky hatred, but the guitar lines are so goddamned typical for Barathrum – I guess they have used them (with very little variation) already a hundred times. With that said, the songs drag on and on ('Dark Sorceress' with its partly whining, wannabe melodic guitars is the prime example of musical dreariness). I really hate to write it, but these 40 minutes feel like an hour at least. No, Barathrum do not deliver a pile of shit, by far not, but their offering is not enough for such a well-known band from the global hotspot of black metal. The predictability of their pieces (no surprising breaks far and wide), the monotony of many song parts, and the fact that we know they can do it much better lead to a pretty vapid aftertaste. I always liked Barathrum and I hope they return in a better form quickly, but I cannot recommend Überkill.

Rating: 5 out of 10