HARVEST GULGALTHA is back. This American black/death metal act was born from the extreme metal ashes of 2012; Five years later (2017), the band dropped their debut full-length release, "Altars of Devotion", via Aphotic Sonance and Nuclear War Now! Three years later, HARVEST GULGALTHA are back with their second full-length release, "Ancient Woods", released last November of 2022 via Godz Ov War Productions. Before heading off with the review, please beware of HARVEST GULGALTHA's musical spectrum -this is not for those who love telling songs apart from each other! -if you are like me, who loves music that plays one continuous flow and is not worried about telling each song apart, just enjoying the musical spectrum/atmosphere flow, "this is for you!"

As mentioned in a few of my reviews, especially this release was hard to single out certain songs - "Ancient Woods" deserve the full attention. There are no favourites or skipping tracks; this needs & demands to listen as one. As mentioned above, trying to tell each song apart -is a task and a half. I want to take the opportunity of discussing this as a whole piece and not individually. HARVEST GULGALTHA's musical spectrum/atmosphere takes the listener on a journey deep in the ancient woods, where Necromancy summons the ancient spirits, death lurks in every dark space, a forest full of suicides and sacrifices, the forest floor is soaked with blood, and Occultist practices their dark rites.

"Ancient Woods" combines the brutality of death metal and the coldness of black metal while adding a tint of sludge and the slowness of doom metal within their musical atmosphere consisting of a production that feeds and consumes the low frequencies of the dark distortions and blackened rhythm sections, murky drum strikes and beats, low growls and tormenting screams -which is all provided by awesome devilmanship and musicianship -which envelope into one massive dark atmosphere and sound that's soaked with depression, hypnotic, and cold as brimstone...

"Ancient Woods", in my opinion, is everything I expect from these unknown dark druids, which provide the listener's ears and soul with a piece of sacrificial music that's (mentioned before) depressive, hypnotic, and cold as brimstone -also dark, heavy and extreme. This Cryptic Necromantic Black Death Metal is not for the faint-hearted -again, there are no favourites or skipping tracks -a killer of a release; this needs & demands to listen as one, with those speakers soaked in the blood of the victims of the maxed volume of eleven.<