Chile is home to Patagonia, one of the most peaceful, beautiful places on earth. It’s a place where people can go to relax, unwind and reconnect with nature—an incredibly remote area full of expensive resorts and services dedicated to luxury and pampering. Yet somehow, in that same country, resides the absolutely pure, unadulterated evil of Perversor. On their long-awaited new LP Anticosmocrator, they are entire underworlds away from the beauty and luxury of Patagonia. Anticosmocrator is nothing short of an all-out assault driven by the desire for complete sensory overload on the listener.

Metal is, by nature, aggressive. It’s not uncommon for albums to take aim at their listeners’ eardrums and assault them with incessant barrages of sonic weaponry. Perversor are no different; they are aggressive, their music is fast, and they do not hold back. Each track pummels with unrelenting fury. At times the assault feels like classic black metal of the early 90’s until the blat-blat-blat-blat of the snare drums becomes not only repetitive but actually quite annoying. And it’s not only the excessive use of the snare, it’s the tuning of it and the unrelenting volume of it in the mix.

Seven years prior to the release of Anticosmocrator, Perversor came at us with a clear set of intentions on their debut, Cult of Destruction. That album—recorded in a more subdued and less metallic, tinny and compressed method—revealed a band thoroughly entrenched in the assaultive sound of classic Norwegian black metal, yet confident enough to put their own spin on it. In their seven year layoff, however, it appears that Perversor have spent their time attempting to speed up their already blistering music. What was once simplistic, didactic guitar playing has become a shrill, nearly indistuingishable blur of fuzz—the downside being that, had Perversor left well enough alone, Cult of Destruction would be a work that left fans wondering what could have been. Tragically, Anticosmocrator, answers those questions.

Anticosmocrator actually has some bright moments. For example, the eighth track, “Old Temples of Death,” is a real throwback in terms of influences. With almost no jack-hammering on the snare drum, the track floats by, revealing exceptional potential from these Chilean death merchants. But as soon as it’s over, “Metal Massacre” shows up to, well…massacre all that was going well.

Mercifully, it’s all over in just under twenty-nine minutes. Nine tracks fly at your ears like daggers ready to stab into your brain like a stress-related headache caused by too much work on a Monday. It’s the snare drum that really hurts. Sure, the guitars are fuzzy, too low in the mix and potentially overactive for their indecipherableness, but that snare drum. Tuned to excessive tightness and beaten faster than a Moby track on Four-Loko, the snare never stops jack-hammering at a volume much, much too high with regards to the rest of the mix. It’s audio annihilation.

In the end, the incessant assault of the overly-tightly-tuned snare drum is too much to take. Perversor have some great ideas, but their execution borders on annoyance. Most Hells Headbangers releases are top-notch: well-balanced, forward-thinking and definitely brutal. Perversor stands out as a rare mistake in their catalog, as the band fails to develop any cohesive ideas or any semblance of musical direction.

-Manny-O-War

Anticosmocrator will be available July 27 on Hells Headbangers Records. For more information on Perversor, visit the band’s Facebook page.