all that was promised

Second Circle: Hath and Egregore

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Second Circle

In Dante’s Inferno, the second circle begins the proper punishment of Hell, a place where “no thing gleams.” It is reserved for those overcome with Lust, where carnal appetites hold sway over reason. In Nine Circles, it’s where we do shorter reviews of new (ish) albums that share a common theme.

Within the last two years or so, I’ve come to enjoy taking a long, hard look at my own biases when it comes to music I like and don’t like. I have a long-form rambling manifesto on the topic of progressive metal from a while back to that effect, but that is not where this self-interrogation begins or ends. I have been finding a lot of albums lately that I love despite their being played in a style of metal that I don’t generally gravitate towards, and this brings me another chance to shine a light into the cobweb-strewn corners of what’s left of my brain and grill myself about two albums that could each conceivably be called ‘blackened death metal’, although both choose to do something wildly different with that prompt. With that, I bring you something old, and something new…

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Hath’s Frank Albanese on new album “All That Was Promised,” working with Willowtip, Bandcamp, and much more!

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Hath

On their debut Of Rot and Ruin, Hath stunned a crowded death metal landscape with their brutal Opethesque take on it. Now, three years and a pandemic later, All That Was Promised is even better with tighter songwriting, even more razor sharp riffs than before, and an incredibly apocalyptic atmosphere. In two albums, Hath has reached a level that most bands take years to develop. Just on the heels of the new album’s release, Buke had the chance to chat with vocalist and guitarist Frank Albanese about the new album and how the band dealt with the extremely high bar they set three years ago, how it’s been working with Willowtip Records and how that union came to be, Bandcamp and the Epic Games recent purchase of same, how Frank learned to play guitar, and some of Frank’s and the band’s history in the Jersey scene. They also cover one of Frank’s favorite albums of 2021, video games, album art, giving black metal artists free ideas, and a ton more. 

This is an epic length conversation, so grab your beverage of choice and settle in for another edition of the Nine Circles Audio Thing.

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