Anaal Nathrakh has certainly come a long way since The Codex Necro, tweaking the vocals here, the production there and yet are still comfortably predictable and consistent. I say “comfortably” in the sense that the fans can rest easy knowing that a new Anaal album will bring them exactly what they expect with no surprises.  At least it always seems so on the surface. I mean, how innovative can you get with hyper-blasting drums and piercingly distorted, maniacal vocals? To the untrained ear, even using the word “innovative” when listening to Anaal Nathrakh will sound like a joke, at least at this point in their career, but for those of us who’ve been paying attention, that’s exactly what Passion is, innovative and how can I say this… insane. Not insane in the way you might think, i.e. blistering speed or indecipherable song structures, but as a collective listen, Passion is the work of calculated madmen with musical instruments in their hands.

For starters, the harsh vocals sound even more frantic than they ever have.  Maybe it’s the delivery or how they’re arranged in the songs, but even for Anaal they come off feeling warped, frightened even.  It’s weird.  Since Hell is Empty…, the songs have gradually been molded into somewhat catchy structures with near sing-along choruses at times thanks to the clean vocals (which were first heard on Domine Non Es Dignus) so you might have gotten the feeling that Anaal Nathrakh was getting closer to jumping on any number of bandwagons or trends. Well, not only did that not happen, but they completely threw it all out of the window and recorded an album that couldn’t be any further from a trend or a bandwagon, or from their previous two albums at that. What they have released in Passion is about as spastic and unpredictable as was possible for them. “Volenti Non Fit Iniuria” opens up the album in the way we’d expect: a catchy intro only to explode into a violent barrage of sound woven perfectly with catchy riffs and a battery of drumming. It’s a clear addition and continuation from the past few albums which cleverly lulls us into the album only to blindside us with what’s to come.  From here on, very few of the songs will echo that structure and in fact, it becomes an exercise into anti-structure and all out madness.

“Drug-Fucking Abomination” is probably the most un-Anaal Nathrakh song I’ve ever heard in the sense that there’s about three minutes of meandering instrumental stuff before transforming into the crazed song you’d expect.  There are several moments throughout Passion where the screaming just goes on in this absolutely tortured fashion (where clearly there are no lyrics) that can possibly send the listener into a panic. Maybe the most surprising aspect on Passion come in the form of tracks three and five: “Post-Traumatic Stress Euphoria” and “Locus of Damnation.” This is grind, people. Perfectly done, I might add. Short bursts of aggression that end as relentless and they begin, these two tracks add a huge amount of personality that I haven’t seen in Anaal Nathrakh’s entire discography.  It’s weird how less than three minutes of music can do that to a ten year career. “Tod Huetet Uebel” furthers the cause for craziness with the wild and screeching Bethlehem guest vocals.  Not just a verse or two, but throughout the entire song which makes it nearly unlistenable to me and if you’re familiar with Bethlehem, you’ll know why. I don’t even care who it is specifically, but just as Bethlehem is a “love ‘em” or “hate ‘em” band, so is this song.

Seven tracks in, “Paragon Pariah” is the first song that will remind you of the Anaal from the previous two albums with its catchy chorus and typical structure but ironically, it’s the sore thumb on an album like this.  “Who Thinks of the Executioner?” is one of my favorites with its interesting vocal effects and “Ashes Screaming Silence” is a great way to wrap up everything with a heavy staccato beat and clean vocal chorus.

As a fan of them since The Codex Necro, I’ve never really needed a whole lot of time with each album to understand them, to let them “grow on me” so to speak, but Passion clearly changed that.  At first, I thought they had just gone crazy and recorded a bunch of inanity but after dozens of listens, it all came together. The intent was to throw everyone off but they did it in a very calculated way. I said this on my previous review of In the Constellation of the Black Widow, but it makes even more sense now: no one is doing what Anaal Nathrakh does. Also, no one seems to be able to create complexity out of madness like they can which is slightly oxymoronic in a way since you aren’t really crazy if you know it, but that’s an endearing quality to the psychotic nature of Anaal’s music.  If I based my score of this album on the songs I really liked, it would be a 3.5, but the precision of the way it was created by abandoning the previous format to avoid the looming stagnation and still creating something highly thought-provoking easily earns them a 4.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Volenti Non Fit Iniuria
2.  Drug-Fucking Abomination
3.  Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria
4.  Le Diabolique Est L'ami Du Simplement Mal
5.  Locus of Damnation
6.  Tod Huetet Uebel
7.  Paragon Pariah
8.  Who Thinks of the Executioner?
9.  Ashes Screaming Silence
10.  Portrait of the Artist

Total playing time:  36:05

Release Date: May 17th, 2011
Label: Candelight Records

Anaal Nathrakh - Passion

Reviewer: Jesse

May 7, 2011

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