By Keith Carman
While they’re a dime a dozen, few North American black metal acts may boast the honesty, confrontational attitude and actions to back up their stance. In regards to Ohio-based trio Acheron, a history of anti-Christian and Satanic albums/statements, kinship with the Church Of Satan and ongoing battles with televangelists prove they are just shy of old school Norwegians in putting their money where their mouth is. The fact that they’re also able to unleash some truly obliterating music on top of that just clinches the deal.
With this first batch of new music in six years, the blackened death metal brigade proves nothing has faltered during that extended absence. Forged from the combative live-in-the-studio atmosphere of Kreator’s Pleasure To Kill coupled with the soupy low end of Obituary yet new enough to elicit comparison to fellow evil-doers Behemoth, The Final Conflict is as furious as it is delightfully offensive. Replete with ravenous screeches, churning guitar riffs and thunderous beats, each of its 10 tracks is a saga, epiphany and mind-blowing abuse of distortion rolled into one. Slam them together and the whole affair is exponentially imposing.
(Ibex Moon)
Rating: 8.0
