Total Hate from the beautiful city of Nuremberg - which, among others, have personal overlaps with the "predecessor band" Seeds of Hate (maybe not quite right, I always felt that way), the awesome Deathronation (if something came along again, that would be great...) and the now also quite well-known Goath - honored us at the end of last year with their already sixth album called "Forthcoming Age of the Reaper" via War Anthem Records, after the predecessor "Marching towards Humanicide" was released just 21 months before the current work. In this case, quality is definitely not at the expense of quality, friends of traditional black metal sounds will hardly find anything better at the moment. The usual suspects can be mentioned here as name droppers, so anyone who counts bands like Gorgoroth, Carpathian Forest, Urgehal, Armagedda, Craft, Graven, Horna or old Darkthrone among their favorites will be perfectly served here. At the same time, Total Hate manage like only a few bands today to shape this old school approach, which of course comes across as basic, raw and with a certain primitiveness, in such a way that the highest possible degree of dynamics is created within this narrow stylistic corset. The tracks are constructed in an exciting way, with tempo changes and the occasional melodic insertion. The album more or less closes with “Fields of Victory (The final Return)” which, based solely on acoustic guitar, keyboards and drums, creates a melancholy atmosphere that can also be found in some of the intermezzos on the early records by the Belgians of Ancient Rites. This is followed by “Dodmarsj Till Helvete”, a well-done cover of the aforementioned, now defunct Norwegians Urgehal from their 2006 album “Goatcraft Torment”. As you can see, there are professionals at work here. Absolutely recommended listening and buying!
