ninehertz

This is blunt. From the no nonsense band name, to the track lengths - all ten up in seventeen unforgiving minutes - to the unrefined vocal delivery, Satan aren't pissing about. It takes a time to be able to cut through the abrasiveness, where first listens focus on the crude black metal output and jar against the rawness. But persistance with it opens it up, revealing something quite brilliant, a punk-fuelled barrage that once clicks, hooks you in whole.

Hailing from Grenoble in France, this sits perfectly alongside Throatruiner labelmates Plebeian Grandstand, guided by the ghostly hands of the originators - in Satan's case, Darkthrone, Venom, Motorhead and maybe even Doom - and allying it to a ferocious bombardment, creating something ugly and oppressive, yet also addictive, and oddly fresh and modern.

The album gets stronger as it goes on, Ça Coupe Et Ça Saigne and Totale Éclipse among the standout individual tracks, but at this length the album is best consumed whole. That Steve Austin had a hand in this - mastering and mixing the release - fits, sharing the unhinged personality of Today is the Day. The vocals come across at once mean spirited, drunken and demonic, with a French accent, only varying on Poison, where they become only more deranged, the howls of the stray dogs of hell.

Un Deuil Indien is blunt, it is fucked up, and it does not want to be your friend. Yet I cannot stop playing it, and as such can't recommend it enough.