Release
date: December 09th 2016. Label: Bonten Records. Format:
CD/DD
Chaotic
Fiend – Tracklisting
1.Chaotic
Fiend
2.I
Drink Your Blood
3.Smoke
Demon
4.Masque
of The Black Death
5.Lost
Flowers
6.Empire
7.Punisher
#13
8.Engrave
The Misery
9.Jerusalem
Axe Massacre
Band
Members:
Hyö
Kagawa – Guitar
Wahei
Gotoh – Bass
Takefumi
Matsuda – Drums
Hiroyuki
Takano – Vocals, Guitar
Review:
Sithter's
second album - Chaotic Fiend - offers another round of Death, Doom,
Drone and Psychedelic Madness. Chaotic Fiend is quite a dark,
progressive and complex album with the band touching on a variety of
dark themes throughout the album. Though the band creates a huge
amount of different noises and riffs that keep you entertained
throughout the album. The vocals consist mainly of death based growls
and a few clean chants towards the end of the album. Imagine a
creepier and sadistic version of Church Of Misery and that's the best
way to describe Sithter's music.
The
lyrical content is handled superbly well as the band conveys a dark
sense of fear on the album. Songs such as Chaotic Fiend, Smoke Demon,
Empire and Engrave The Misery show that the band aren't afraid to
explore dark grisly themes but the band offer some serious Black
Sabbath/Electric Wizard riff-loving worship with a touch of
psychedelic drone based noise. It's a winning combination though some
fans maybe put off by some of the lengthy epic tracks on the album.
It's
not an easy album to listen to as the Drone aspect of the bands music
can be very hard to listen to at times. The instrumental work is good
for most parts of the album. However there are moments where the
volume is too low for the band to make much of an impact.
Other
than that Sithter have created a deeply unforgiving album especially
on the final epic seventeen minute track - Jerusalem Axe Massacre.
Sithter embark on a Drone/Doom/Sludge schizophrenic nightmare with
distorted psych based noises. The band leave you wanting more as the
song suddenly ends after a heavy guitar solo that repeats itself over
and over again. Though it still sounds original and fiendishly clever
at the same time.
Chaotic
Fiend is one of the more interesting Doom Metal albums I've heard
from the Japanese Doom Metal scene recently. If you're looking for a
more extreme and far out psychedelic take on conventional Doom/Sludge
Metal then you will find this album very hard to beat. Sure it has a
few flaws but you can't deny the overall quality of this album.
Words
by Steve Howe
Thanks to Richard at Sheltered Life PR for the promo. Chaotic Fiend will be out to buy on CD/DD via Bonten Records from December 9th 2016.
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