International based brutal death metal band ARBORESCENCE OF WRATH has been lurking in the underground for awhile now but they have now dropped the massive sledgehammer of a debut album called 'Inferno,' upon us all.  Without a doubt, this is one of the more vicious and uncompromising albums I've heard in death metal this year.  From the moment the first song begins, this album just doesn't stop for forty two minutes.  Imagine if someone beat you to death with a box of hammers while you fell down the world's tallest tree and hit every branch on the way down...that might give you a small taste of how goddamn intense this album is. With a pair of headphones on, it is almost surreal.  After jamming this from front to back, I was certainly exhausted. I suppose it is to be expected considering the pedigree of the individuals involved. Featuring current or former members of ORIGIN, MARDUK and BENIGHTED, the album takes the speed of the former, the venom of the middle and the brutality of the latter and turns the dial to eleven....thousand.

I suppose this band is extremely extreme for the sake of being extremely extreme. But there is more to it than that. This kind of punishment has a purpose. It has to or it wouldn't have kept me engaged as much as it did. If I have any complaints, it is the production. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great. But perhaps too great. Sure, the clarity allows each painful stab to maximize bleeding damage but I feel if it sounded a little more rough, it certainly wouldn't hurt and maybe even make it sound a little hellish. The album opens with 'Wrath' and it is a punch in the face by a thousand fists, with each fist having its own mini fist that is wearing brass knuckles. The double bass is a sea of sweltering rhythm death. The bass and guitars duel it out with fast as fuck riffs but they slow down just a enough to let that wonderfully malicious tone seep in.

'Hangman' races by with flesh ripping speed but the riffs are just dissonant and groovy enough to hold the song together enough to keep it from falling under its own weight. Then that insane guitar solo does its own ripping and then my head caved under the visceral carnage. Is this even real? How can something get this unrelenting?  Death metal will always push boundaries and this band just can't stop. Good. 'Holier Than Thou' has a surprisingly elegant and operatic opening before the bulldozing begins. I love the rhythms...they just don't quit but meld seemingly easy enough into solos that take the song to new heights. The riffs near the end after the second solo are just....goddamn. 'Temple of Ashes' is loaded with vocals that bark over the riffs that change style from groove to bludgeoning. I swear if it wasn't for the low end providing a foundation, this song might actually break my speakers. 'Repentance,' is pure rotten filth and quite possibly the best banger on the album that is nothing but bangers. The middle portion is  pure death metal Bliss and it leads into another special section just before a whacked out solo that is oddly melodic and somewhat disturbing.

If death metal could be harnessed to provide energy, 'Inferno' could power the world once the sun goes out. This is an album that represents everything that makes death metal so real, honest, and imposing.