The Scottish underground is teeming with some exceptionally grotty metallic filth right now, with bands such as BRAINBATH, COFFIN MULCH, and PENNY COFFIN leading the way in a mayhemic muck-filled death metal conquest. But there's been room for some seriously hellish, fleshed-out blackened death metal damnation for a short while: make way for Scotland's blasphemous, blackened crusaders, FEANNAG. With an all-consuming irreverence for Christianity, these iconoclastic defenders of the unholy and unhallowed have created a beguiling debut that offers dark melodies in abundance, meshed with seething and impassioned vocals. FEANNAG's intricate approach to its craft ensures that interchangeable pacing, merged with crushing riffs and swirling atmospheres continually delight your ears for just short of an hour's listening on the band's full-length, "Throne".

In a punishing and bloodied blackened death onslaught, FEANNAG weave elements of the ambience of ROTTING CHRIST, merging the scathe of NILE, and flavours of early ENTOMBED, and even a little BENEDICTION, in "Throne", although it should be said that this is a record carved wholly in the vein of FEANNAG's own originality. "Which of the Twain was God" creates a dismal shroud to entomb you in with its unsettling intro and mid-tempo stomping, focusing on the conflict of God and Satan encased in something wholly embittered and biting, merging into the trudging down-tuned dirtiness of the title-track where FEANNAG offer some blasts and keen riffage in homage to Satan making his mark on mankind. It must be said that the band's exploration of religious juxtaposition is thought-provoking, and their castigation of its fallacies and 'false prophets' within the high-quality lyrics in the likes of "No Obedience, No Kneel, No Bow" make this already fascinating record deadlier to the ears.

The band's ineffable ability to create something very visual - as well as visceral - through its music and lyrical content is incredible throughout "Throne". "Rise of the Slavs" is a bludgeoning assault filled with battalion strength that spits with certitude about the Slavs revolting against the despicable forced religious indoctrination of the Catholic church. It should also be noted that FEANNAG's aptitude for immersing itself in pivotal historical events to its cause is second-to-none, with them also tackling the First Crusade in "Siege of Jerusalem 1099 A.D.", too, flaying with sharp riffs, devastating blasts, and menacing vocal execution to immerse you in their audial bloodbath. The powerfully evocative instrumentals are outstanding, with the low-end on "Goetia" underpinning an abyssal track intended to evoke 'evil' spirits, gloomy atmospheres propelling into a more death-doom territory, bleeding into "Antigod Manifesto" with its suffocating blackness that combusts into an inferno of blasts and poisonous vocals, something elevated to catastrophic levels in the crucifying brutality of "St. Whore". The aggression of "Desire of the Wisdom of the God" lacerates with its virulence, while "The Call of Feannag" bookends this magnificent album with riffs that will earworm for days.

Bulging with dark atmospheres and awash with compelling musicianship, FEANNAG has produced a stunning debut in "Throne" that will appeal to those fascinated by substantial death metal with the blackened treatment and an insatiable scorn for religion; FEANNAG is preaching to the converted when it comes to delivering a sermon of certitude in the Antichristian black death metal realms, and their congregation will love it.