ninehertz

Released digitally last year, Unyielding Love's The Sweat of Augury is still shaking, still reverberating with aggro fuelled energy, and it is only right that it gets a full vinyl release now, through some of the best labels of the underground (Sentient Ruin, Vetala, Feast of Tentacles and Skin & Bones). Recorded at the Cro's Nest - Sam of Slabdragger's recording studio - this Belfast outfit sound utterly fearsome, on a level of Dragged into Sunlight meets Full of Hell hellishness, amazingly so for this early stage in their existence.

Abandon the Body announces their arrival, eighty seconds that attempt to rip off your face, through unholy grind which just about leaves you intact but with enough warning for what you are about to be subjected to. There are fleeting memories of Pig Destroyer or even Soilent Green in Fleeting Joy, but these are swamped by a powerviolent, distinctively-UK hardcore rage.

The apocalyptic grind of Cruor Whelm contains a sludge crunch that leaves you wanting more than its 49 seconds, while Ardent Shroud buzzes, whirs and attacks in migraine inducing whirlwinds. Of Human Grease and Ash reminds me of the feral, throw everything - heart, soul, lungs, sweat and hatred - approach of Vermin Womb, while the longer The Pregnant Hurt changes pace, for more than half its five minutes a slow, quiet build, the last couple of minutes almost atmospheric black metal of the kind best approached by Wiegedood or Altar of Plagues.

For an album that is so direct and efficient in its assault, it is amazing the breadth of influence and imagination it conjures, boiling down elements of black metal, grind, hardcore, noise, sludge and more in not much more than twenty minutes, leaving a pure and potent solution as black as night. It is uncomfortable listening, yet without a doubt, an awe-inducing brilliant piece of art.