‘Elddop’ is the fifth long player by Swedish brutalists Martyrdöd, and promises ‘enchanting melodies and Bathory-esque folk music’ which ‘finds a perfect fit in war charged d-beat mayhem.’ Combining hardcore punk, crust and dirty metal, ‘Elddop’ is dark and violent, and immediately strikes as being a more intense and impactful than its predecessor, while at the same time demonstrating moments of remarkable musical accomplishment. The expansive and harmonic ‘Martyren’ is at once nuanced and powerful.
Musically, the guitars build a grandiose sweeping metal maelstrom, the beginning of a perfect storm... and then it breaks, a rush of driving drums and vocals, raw, guttural and muffled bark in anguish from amidst it all. That’s how it begins, with the searing force of ‘Nödkanal’, and from thereon in the volume, the pace and the aggression only builds. ‘Synd’ brings grunt and chug and squealy notes and solid 4/4 rhythms played hard. Perhaps predictably, but ultimately necessarily, the album comes on like a landslide of noise, a wall of guitar-driven abrasion and a tidal wave of cymbals piledriving the senses at a hundred miles an hour. Gnarly as sin, ‘Elddop’ is a clear step up, and is definitely the sound of a band firing on all cylinders.
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