1349 – Massive Cauldron Of Chaos (2014)

August 31, 2015

Urrrrrghhhh! 1349 returned from the misty fjords last year with the excellent Massive Cauldron Of Chaos. Personally, I would have called it Massive Cauldron Of Endless Blastbeats to more suitably match 1349’s sound, but that would just be silly. Despite the expected ticking of mental drumming speeds, MCOC gets fairly melodic now and then, something which admittedly caught me off guard at first (see the tinkling passages between brutality in “Slaves” as an easy example of what I’m waffling about).

This album screeches past at lightening speed, breaking pace for song intros and then slowing somewhat for the beginning of “Postmortem” (which definitely isn’t a Slayer cover). “Golem” is a strange one, at one minute forty in length (right up my alley haha), “Chained” returns to Hellfire speed/territory, mixing up extreme precision with Venom-esque riffage and swagger. Finally, “Godslayer” rounds off the swirling maelstrom with a six minute dose of epic black metal savagery. Beast.

They might have taken a four year break between records but 1349 are as fresh and vibrant as ever. The sheer speed of this band never fails to totally floor me.