STAHLSARG: Suicide of God CD digipak
Formed back in 2013, Stahlsarg’s name translates as ‘steel coffin’, a grim reference to the submarines sunk during WW2 and an apt allusion to the deeply war-inspired lyrics and themes within much of their music.
The group released their debut album Comrades in Death on Danish label Mighty Music (Vulcano, Panzerchrist) in 2015, and two years later followed this up with Mechanisms of Misanthropy, issued on Non Serviam Records (Pantheon I, Wormwood).
Having built up a strong following in Europe, and endorsed by the likes of Mayhem’s Hellhammer, the band performed alongside international black metal artists such as Sarkom and Endstille and appeared at respected festivals including Inferno in Norway and Kings of Black Metal in Germany. The band spent much of the late 2010s on tour, before reinventing themselves with a significant line-up change, the result being a prolonged hiatus from recording.
Now the band finally return with their first studio recordings in a half decade, in the shape of mini-album Suicide of God. Totalling 20 minutes, it undoubtedly boasts the strongest material by the band to date, cleverly weaving together slower melancholy-soaked atmospheric passages with frantic riffing and frenzied blasting, new vocalist John Hirst adding a highly effective Gorgoroth-esque snarl to proceedings.
Boasting a powerful but suitably gritty Russ Russell production (Memoriam, Samael, Vallenfyre) the songwriting here is potent indeed, with highly memorable guitar work and slow-building tension, not least in the 8-minute epic ‘Darkness, My Accomplice’. There are nods to the likes of Marduk, early Mayhem and Endstille as well as hints of Bolt Thrower’s embittered intensity, and haunting touches of early Christian Death, a nod perhaps to the founding member’s involvement with the band.
Released on the 1st of March on Cult Never Dies, Suicide of God is housed in a lovingly crafted 6 panel digipak with exclusive artwork.
1. Suicide of God (4.52)
2. Golems (6.27)
3. Darkness, My Accomplice (8.20)