Denouncement Pyre – Almighty Arcanum
As with their debut (2010’s World Cremation), unbridled rage rules the day on Denouncement Pyre’s Almighty Arcanum. This black/death/thrashfest will infuse the uninitiated with power needed to negotiate traffic, make it through a droning workday, or simply escape the neuroses laden within their skulls. And whether you need forty minutes of eldritch energy or five, Almighty Arcanum’s your huckleberry with songs that stand on their own and are cohesive as an album. Balancing a blitzkreig of ice-shellacked riffs, frostbitten drumwork, and fog-enveloped/reverb-buried leads with a flaming temperature, these collected hymns of Australian concoction epitomize the dark. One element alone unites the others in the maelstrom, however: Decaylust’s vocals; the unstable propellant of it all. With the diction of a condemned priest enlightening Hell’s victims on the laws of their new Master, Decaylust’s gurgling yet discernible admonitions work together with DP’s absolutely uncompromising Metal to hear and obey. And obey you shall, for this unusually catchy blackened thrash tapestry of demonic propaganda compels you to hit ‘repeat’ again and again, until you become an unwitting accomplice into the indoctrination of your own mind.
Underneath a cooling crust of molten blackness, the depth of Denouncement Pyre’s songwriting skills reveal themselves. While you merrily chant ‘Release! Release!’ along with the devil-horde vocals of ‘He Who Conquers All’, snaking six-string curses welded to L.’s battering drums wind their way around hooks with seemingly simple structures that are anything but; every riff on the record has the voice of its writer buried within it, delivering up each of the album’s song-sacrifices upon a pedestal of originality. The success of it all? You can’t put your finger upon exactly what the source of that originality might be; its origins lost in a void unknowable. The only thing that remains clear is the flexibility of this opus, as it just feels right to play this during dinner, at your mother-in-law’s house, in your basement with your headphones on, or while you’re attempting to convince the Jehovah Witnesses who made their way to your doorstep why they’ve been brainwashed. Of course, there’s the sneaking suspicion that you too are being controlled, but in your case by the eerily re-educating effects of Almighty Arcanum – 2013’s first must-buy Extreme Metal album. -Jim
Worm Gear 
“Almighty Arcanum’s your huckleberry”
Ha! I’m looking forward to this one…