Anaal Nathrakh - When Fire Rains Down From The Sky ...Mankind Will Reap What It Has Sewn EP (2003, U.K.) Grindcore/Black Metal

Armageddon. Heaviness is hard to describe. There are many things that contribute to it such as technicality, how downtuned and distorted the guitars are, how compressed the drums are, the nature of the vocals, how fast the music is to slightly more intangible things such as lyrical content, atmosphere and overall intensity. One thing is for sure there will always be an element of the extreme metal community that pushes these boundaries for better or for worse regardless of the consequences, resulting in music that doesn't serve any purpose but to push the envelope.

Anyway I could go on about heaviness forever, the point is this album is ridiculously heavy yet is still incredibly musically relevant and enjoyable to listen to, it's one of the heaviest things I've heard and certainly the heaviest thing I enjoy. The music is composed of a drum machine, heavily distorted bass, screamed distorted vocals and a gut ripping guitar that pretty much makes the album. The two masterminds behind the project VITRIOL and Irrumator have put deep thought into song writing and riffs here, the impact of this is that the music will depart from the all out blast-beat attack into a long breakdown with deep incantations (as seen in the outstanding opener 'Cataclysmic Nihilism') which gives rise to a sparse old-testament style plague ridden atmosphere and it is for reasons like this that I think this album is particularly heavy - more than the sum of its parts.

All that said this EP can be nauseating, on first listen I knew I loved it but I couldn't stomach more than 2 and a half tracks for quite some weeks. These days it can be a somewhat contemplative experience due to the overwhelming sense of despair conveyed by the uncompromising melodies and tortured screams set to the unrelenting blast-beat of a drum machine (tempered of course by some killer breakdowns).

This is a dangerous album, if you have the gall to withstand the onslaught you will probably end up loving this EP, if you don't it may grow ever so slowly on you or you may detest it completely. Approach with caution.

Track Listing:

1.	Cataclysmic Nihilism	04:48
2.	How the Angels Fly In (We Can Never Be Forgiven)	02:49
3.	Never Fucking Again	04:12
4.	Genesis of the Antichrist	04:29
5.	Atavism	06:06
6.	When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown	04:24
Total playing time		26:48

Download here: (Anaal Nathrakh - When Fire Rains Down From The Sky ...Mankind Will Reap What It Has Sewn EP, 320kbps)