Band:	Unaussprechlichen Kulten
Album:	Häxan Sabaoth
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	February 2024

01. Lamia Sucuba
02. Cuatro Velas De Cebo Infantil
03. Our Almighty Chthonic Lords
04. Hexennippel
05. Dho Hna Formula
06. Back To The Mother Hydra And Father Dagon
07. Die Teufelsbücher

As the hellish artwork (inspired by the 1922 movie Häxan) suggests, Unaussprechlichen Kulten perform witchcraft, for that is the only way they could have released one of the densest death metal albums of this year, with a bazillion riffs and solos per minute.

It sucks when life gets in the way of checking out and writing about new music! There are some upsides when writing a review over 3 months after the release date, though. First, it is easier to not get lost in any sort of hype. Second and more important, once you catch up with current releases, you can compare the album with what has been released since. Said comparisons favour Unaussprechlichen Kulten.

Celebrating 25 years of existence, Unaussprechlichen Kulten can count themselves as one of the more experienced and long-standing acts in the Chilean extreme metal scene. Their first two albums, especially their sophomore People Of The Monolith, saw the band performing a more immediate, brutal style of occult death metal with hints of black metal thrown into it. The short lengths of these albums (27 and 22 minutes, respectively) even hinted at some war metal leanings. But it wasn’t until 2014 that they got their big break. Unaussprechlichen Kulten released Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath through Iron Bonehead Productions, a label they are still partners with. This was when things started to get interesting with Unaussprechlichen Kulten; the band developed more complex songwriting with vibrant guitar solos that gave intriguing nuances to their oppressive, cave-core take on death metal. They doubled down on all these things with their following releases, as much as I enjoyed their previous album Teufelsbücher from 2019, I think they are reaching even greater heights with this year’s H​ä​xan Sabaoth.

What makes Unaussprechlichen Kulten stand out is their ability to pull from so many different styles with so much ease to create perfectly balanced songs. Death metal is obviously the main course here, but black, doom, thrash and even heavy metal are used profusely as condiments to enhance the dish, I mean album. Very few bands pull that off and pass it as a coherent piece of music, but these Chileans have mastered the art of sounding both old-school and forward thinking at the same time. In that sense, Unaussprechlichen Kulten reminds me of the more contemporary acts Suffering Hour and Bølzer, although if you were looking for an older point of reference then I’d say The Chasm are a better comparison. Just like the aforementioned acts, Unaussprechlichen Kulten has riffs and solos for days. Normal bands would spread their most majestic solos and most neck-breaking riffs throughout far longer albums; Unaussprechlichen Kulten rolls the other way and makes sure each one of those 43 minutes needs to be absolutely chock-full of dense guitar-playing.

I am not exaggerating when I say that each song has at the very least one moment when I raised my eyebrows due to sheer admiration. I should also mention that the thundering drums, imposing bass and vocals are all of high quality of course, but it is really the unhinged guitars that are the main characters of this album. It’s like the guitars speak different languages, and slither and intertwine like a pair of deadly vipers. The staccato leads and solos are alarming, but also turn inspiring as they reach a neo-classical level of passion and complexity. On the other hand, the galloping riffs are most catchy, but can go into a dissonant frenzy at the drop of a hat. All this can make the album a bit hard to get into for some people, but I think the off-kilter style of theirs radiates so much charm precisely for how busy and intense it is.

I’m really sad and ashamed that I didn’t write this review sooner. But I’m also grateful because after more than 3 months since its release, I can still vouch for this piece of mental and original death metal. It ranks highly among the best of the genre this year. Blast it loud.