Rotting Bull - Beyond Ragnarok

Tracklist:-

Part 1 -

1. The Rotting Congregation

2. Strung Up With Piano Wire

3. Nurture Hatred

Part 2 - 

4. Auld Crow Murder Plot

5. Tooled Up Drug Addled Teenager

Part 3 - 

6. Through The Looking Glass Of A Failed Suicide

7. As Far As Your Conscience Allows

Hailing from the industrial wastelands of Newcastle Upon Tyne and playing bleak and decaying heavy music, Rotting Bull have aptly summed up their surroundings on new album Beyond Ragnarok. Originally released in 2014, it has since been pressed (and subsequently sold out) on limited CD by Blackwood Productions and on tape via Witchhammer Productions. It's three parts formed by "nine minute bursts" (quote from the CD insert) of ritualistic black metal. 

Part One begins with torturous feedback, noise and metallic swathes of guitar. The Rotting Congregation acts as a maddening introduction to Beyond Ragnarok with it’s discordant and crusty black metal. Strung Up With Piano Wire is as harsh as it’s title suggests. The second movement in the band’s opening part, it’s blasts keep the tempo high while there’s more than just a slight black ’n’ roll influence in there too. Rotting Bull sums up their mood with Nurture Hatred and it’s mix of treble-laden guitar and disgustingly inhumane growls. After the initial onslaught, Auld Crow Murder Plot opens up Part Two with raging black thrash and screams that sit higher in the mix. It’s also pretty catchy, which I didn’t think I’d be saying! You know things are truly well with the world when you can lose yourself in music this nasty. With all of the emphasis on avant-garde black metal of late, Tooled Up Drug Addled Teenager banishes any sort of pretentiousness from Rotting Bull’s music (not that there was any in the first place). They really go all out with this song and it’s inner Voivod-isms remind me of Khthoniik Cerviiks. Through The Looking Glass Of A Failed Suicide is the most terrifying wall of noise on Beyond Ragnarok. It’s a short instrumental piece that ushers in Part Three and shakes your innards at the same time. They force nails into your eyes with the final seven-and-a-half-minutes of As Far As Your Conscience Allows. Black metal truly can take on many different forms in these modern times, with Rotting Bull proving that out of abject hatred, enjoyment can be found. The enjoyment I’m referring to is nestled in this release. 

You can stream Beyond Ragnarok and pick it up as a name-your-price-download below:-

The CD version can be purchased from the distro of Sinister Stench Productions -
http://www.sinisterstenchproductions.bigcartel.com

Tape versions can be purchased from Witchhammer Productions here - http://www.whpkult.com/whp-cassette-tapes

Rotting Bull Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RottingBull/
Blackwood Productions Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/blackwoodproductionsuk