Hanging the Nihilist — Prophetic Blasphemy

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Denmark melodic deathcore rears its dastardly head in the form of HANGING THE NIHILIST’s grisly release “Prophetic Blasphemy.” It’s as devastatingly heavy as anything you’ve ever heard with the typical themes of defilement, disgust, death, and everything else dark and dreary. It begins with an instrumental “Prelude to Prophecy,”’ which offers up ominous, operatic style sounds — the sounds of imminent danger. This leads into “Enter the Procession” where you hear exactly how brutal things are about to be. Both the low and high vocals are extreme and very well done. They’re a band for people who like LORNA SHORE, SUICIDE SILENCE, and CARNIFEX. Huge props to vocalists Giorgio Eternity and Berna Baki.

HANGING THE NIHILIST have created an album that is epic and crushing in its sound. “The Inevitable Dissent” is a great example of their sound, this feeling of monumental disaster their music evokes. It’s like listening to the ultimate battle between good vs. evil…and evil is winning. What I liked a lot about this song is that even when it slows down and becomes quieter right before the solo, it never loses intensity. Another song I felt stood out is “Labour of the Sacred Bodies.” Serious stank faces will happen listening to this one. You know the face I’m talking about. “Defilement ensued…” is an instrumental interlude that gives the feeling that the end is nigh. I think the emotion it provokes is necessary, but I thought it was a little long at nearly three minutes. However, it leads nicely into the penultimate song “…To the Sound of Madness.” That weird, end-of-the-world feeling you get comes to a head with the destruction their sound leaves in its wake.

I thought “Hunted Through Hell” was the perfect way to end this album. The band never let up, leaving absolute destruction in their path. They remained heavy and harsh and full of hell with brutal vocals, searing guitars, and drums as fast as hummingbird wings. Even the way this song faded out in the end put a perfect harrowing finish on such a monstrously heavy album. I really felt like the only thing lacking was to have a sound more their own, to stand out from the deathcore crowd. It reminded me so much of LORNA SHORE, which isn’t a bad thing for me, but I wanted to know why I should listen to HANGING THE NIHILIST instead.

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 6
Production: 8