ProFanatism - "Hereticon" (Under the Sign of Garazel Productions/Putrid Cult, 2016)

Band: ProFanatism
Title: Hereticon
Genre: Black metal
Year: 2016
Time: 36 min
Rating: 77/100












Do you have spent a good New Year’s Day? Yes? No? Anyway, this ‘zine begins this fuckin’ new year in the best possible way with an overdose of black metal. From Poland with hateful love comes from ProFanatism, a duo born in 2012 which, after an handful of demos and a split, have released on CD, some months ago, its debut album “Hereticon” by the compatriots Under the Sign of Garazel Productions and Putrid Cult with the addition of a tape version of the album edited by Total War, another compatriot label. All these patriotic collaborations for a black metal album that is very interesting and rich of curious skills.

“Hereticon” starts with a very short and menacing intro titled “Arise from the Dust and Fire”, then it’s the turn for “Darkness in the Eyes of God”. From here, our ears have to contend with a kind of very apocalyptic and cold black metal (and I mean “cold” also because the drums seems to be a drum-machine) on which dominates the catarrhous screams of Hidden, that is very overexcited into some songs. But the black metal of ProFanatism isn’t so classic for some unusual solutions, so there is a good variety throughout the album. At the same time, I must say that the better ideas are into the first part of “Hereticon”, especially concerning “Icon Hereticon” and the following “I Cold”.

The first song is very strange because it has a ritualistic and oriental mood also considering its long intro full of terrifying and declaiming voices and tribal tom-toms before becoming mostly a severe mid-tempo with a fantastic main riff.

Instead, “I Cold” (a title, a program!) is the slower song of the album. In fact, it’s very suggestive with its freezing slow parts completed by guitar riffs of Baron transporting the listeners into desolated worlds. Then, there is even a more slow passage characterized by a withering bedlam of screams before a good and unforeseeable acceleration…with a quasi-rock’n’roll riffing! And don’t forget that this song has also a short solo.

To speak the truth, you can find the same aura full of desolation typical of some solutions of “I Cold” also in other songs. In this way, “Nowy świt” is a very good example because it contains a long atmospheric part of clean guitar really able to catapult the listeners into freezing worlds with no life. Moreover, the oriental influences are frequent as showed, for example, by the amazing main riff, with strangely and dangerously haunting tones, of “Ostatni zmierzch” (the other song in Polish of the album), where Hidden alternates his typical screams with suffocating and harrowed growls (another mentionable thing of this song comes from its last seconds played very much on the duet bass/drums). All this is offered before ending the album with “Legion in My Soul”, a half-instrumental song where there is a short female spoken part. Curiously, all the tracks of “Hereticon” lasts at least 5 minutes, excluded the "Arise from the Dust and Fire" intro and, exactly, “Legion in My Soul”.

Ending this review, “Hereticon” is a good album which shows a very freezing black metal able, at the same time, to surprise the listeners with strange solutions, especially during its first part with very memorable songs like “Icon Hereticon” (that has been the first song of the album listened by me!) and “I Cold”. But, in my opinion, a more determined combination of the oriental influences of the first track with the slow desolation of the latter one should be very interesting for the future productions of the band. Yet I wonder what will be the result of this lethal combination…For now, as stated by ProFanatism into the FB profile of the band… “there is no life”.

Tracklist:

1 – Arise from the Dust and Fire (intro)
2 – Darkness in the Eyes of God
3 – Icon Hereticon
4 – I Cold
5 – Dance with a Serpent
6 – Nowy świt
7 – Ostatni zmierzch
8 – Legion in My Soul

Line-up:

Hidden – vocals
Baron – guitars

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/profanatism
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/profanatism
Under the Sign of Garazel Productions: http://www.utsogprod.cba.pl/
Putrid Cult: http://www.badtothebone.otwarte24.pl/
Total War: http://www.hs666.ovh.org/