Barshasketh - Barshasketh

Despite its relative geographical closeness to the genre’s famed originating scenes in Norway and Sweden, when it comes to the prominent music of the UK, black metal isn’t often what first comes to mind. Nevertheless, the advent of the internet and the magnifying glass of Bandcamp and other DIY music platforms have opened windows into teeming underground music scenes near and far, one of them being the UK’s black metal underground, which Barshasketh have made some tremendous waves within over the past few years. The band have struck early this year with their self-titled fourth album, a harrowing voyage through sardonic, abyssmal, blast-beat-laden black metal dissonance. Combining the fierce instrumental thickness of a band like Gorgoroth with a well-tempered balance of the raw aggression of, say, Watain, Barshasketh do well to maintain these contemporary strengths while twisting their approach to come from a slightly more DSBM angle, giving them indeed a sound worthily unique within their musical zone.

The band traverse eight soul-eating songs across the album’s 53 minutes, each seeming to be one compounding downward push after another to accelerate a freefall into their self-made black metal void. Indeed the appeal of Barshasketh comes from the terror of the atmosphere made possible by the band’s matching of their psychological distressing with physicality, either of which could definitely be argued to be not quite as extreme as other forms out there, but for the well-roundedness the band strikes here, the greater magnitude of other bands’ extremity in one department should not detract from what Barshketh have achieved here. No, it’s not the most filthy or sludgy black metal out there, nor is it even the most overtly mentally oppressive, but the band do well to balance both of those sides of black metal without becoming dependent on one. Though certainly not free of any deficiencies, Barshasketh makes up for where they’re lacking either compositionally (which they usually aren’t) or in novelty with monolithic or abyssmal performances. And the band’s performances are consistently fierce and in a manner fitting for the type of black metal they play.

While not the most groundbreaking of releases, Barshasketh’s self-titled record is a fine display of the band’s proficiency with multiple facets of black metal and a commanding exhibition of the band’s ability to integrate these many ideas into a well-organized onslaught of dark, thick, atmospheric black metal, while indeed keeping themselves in a realm of artistic originality that sees them confidently straddling and staring with pride into the pits of triteness they could have fallen into.

Professionally blended dark roast/10