WAN's "Enjoy The Filth" is a very aptly titled album because despite the fact that WAN is a Black Metal outfit, their sophomore effort is brimming with bushels of Punk influences, giving Punk filth a whole new meaning by fusing it with Metal grit.

The entire album has a very raw and stripped down feel. The production does its stylistic work by giving the instruments a very gritty and garage feel, but the songs themselves too are stripped down in the sense that there is little of that overcomplicated Black Metal technicalities going on here - it's just straightforward Punk influenced Metal with touches of Garage. Of course, the atmosphere of Black Metal is still there, but this is by far a more energetic record compared to most typical Black Metal releases.

The riffs retain the prerequisite Black Metal darkness, but other than that "Enjoy The Flith" really is a breath of fresh air in terms of musical direction. Vocalist Tsjud makes use of all his vocal components, exploiting everything from traditional harsh growls to Hardcore Punk venom-filled snarls and finally even a Thrash-influenced high-pitched scream. Thrash Metal of course, is also heavily influenced by Punk, so it's easy to see how it was eventually brought into the fold as well.

I like to think of Black Metal as a subgenre that exhorts and improves on the styles of those that came before it. It is after all, only possible because of Thrash Metal and Punk, but Black Metal can do so much more with those elements because of the tools and freedoms that are available to them, which would be deemed inappropriate in Thrash or Punk. For this reason, a band like WAN that comes along to utilize fully the elements left to them by their musical predecessors is really a diamond in the rough.

It's really refreshing to be brought back to the past like that the way WAN has done for us. Everything, including the production, just screams old school, bringing back the nostalgia of the early 80s to full amplification. Those who miss the old days and raw glory of early extreme Metal, this is a release tailored especially for you.