Black Anvil may have been forged in the mercurial fires of the New York hardcore scene, but don’t call them punks. When Raeph Glicken, Gary Bennett, and Paul Delaney of esteemed outfit Kill Your Idols branched off to form their blackened band in 2007, they abandoned the rigidity of their former craft almost immediately, focusing instead on long, winding assemblages of weeping guitars, thrashy tempos, and hard rock hooks. For every pound of black and roll gristle the band packed on to their most recent effort, 2010’s Triumverate, there was ample brain power to match—a labyrinthine riff here, a blast-beat there. Black Anvil's impressive balance of progressivism and putridity led to their prompt inclusion in the canon of overachieving area extremists, such as Liturgy or Krallice.
If their new album Hail Death serves as any indication, the New Yorkers have no intention of going back to basics. To buttress their fanged jams and fill in some holes in their current live setup, they’ve added a second guitarist, named Sos, to their ranks, granting a boost to both melodics and critical mass. They’re amping up the concepts as well: Hail Death centers around around the inevitable end, as well as the varying degrees of madness which emerge as its approach hastens. The band treats their theme with wicked reverence, expanding the song lengths to accommodate more swells and swathes of feedback. At the same time, they’re the most batshit band of conductors, ceaslessly toggling between turbo and turbid. There’s “Seven Stars Unseen”, a harrowing ride through the void that straddles the threshold between dirge and d-beat, and opener “Still Reborn”, whose rich Spanish guitar provides a haunting contrast to the electrics that scream in their stead.
Barring the 12-minute “Next Level Black”’, which never seems to muster up enough magnitude, the metamorphic approach bodes well for Black Anvil. This is due largely to their appointment of engineer J. Robbins (Modern Life is War, Government Issue), whose conservative approach to mixing ensures that Hail Death’s many guitars don’t collapse into one low-res mess. By putting Bennett and Sos further back, he creates a pocket of space for the vocalists’ lilting harmonies to seep in, lending straightforward headbangers like “ Until the End” morbid beauty. Distinguishing between individual riffs proves trickier, as their already-reduced presence is placed constantly under threat by the throttle of the blast-beats. The only fretwork left to gawk at are the solos, which follow in the slithering style of Marduk and, while far from revolutionary, serve an invaluable role in maintaining momentum when things slow to a stoned sprawl.
“To us, it’s the next level,” Glicken said in a recent Decibel documentary chronicling the making of Hail Death, "Something to aim for, something to shoot for, something to take me out of this mundane existence.” His vague phrasing begs the question: is Black Anvil’s death drive fueled by their art, or is it the other way around? On Hail Death, the relationship is symbiotic; the album's darkness fuels its shifting sounds, which in turn amplfies the dread. Hopefully, as the outfit continues this march of mayhem, the hellish balance will remain intact, securing the band’s reputation for mongrel metaphysics.
