Gorgoroth — Instinctus Bestialis

Reviewing legends like Gorgoroth always presents difficulties. On the one hand, everyone knows that they’ll never top their unholy trio of Pentagram, Antichrist, and Under the Sign of Hell, so naturally everything following is, by extension, the band not living up to their own greatness. On the other hand, the albums that made them legends were released almost two decades ago, so expecting them to equal those heights is bound to be met with failure. Gorgoroth is well aware of the fact that they can’t create an album in the style of their first three albums, and have been moving away from that sound for years now. Instinctus Bestialis furthers that trend, taking a route curiously taken by Mayhem the year earlier: adding death metal to their repertoire.

On Instinctus Bestialis, Gorgoroth largely continues where it left off from Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt with a few notable changes. It was big news when Gorgoroth replaced Pest with Atterigner, some nobody from Serbia. Gorgoroth doesn’t have the greatest track record for keeping down vocalists, but this was a surprise. Atterigner doesn’t sound much like Gaahl, Pest, or Hat, in keeping with Gorgoroth’s tradition of having varying vocal styles. With an explosive, fiery presence, Atterigner commands attention with a surprisingly powerful performance. Opting for a savage, blackened roar for his vocal delivery, the Serb obliterates everything before him like thermonuclear bomb, leaving nothing but charred skeletons and rubble behind. As an accompaniment to this monstrous vocal performance is a broad, blackened death metal base. With a thick, bassy rhythm guitar, Infernus fleshes out the low end of the album with punishing riffs that hit you right in the gut. Broad swathes of broiling guitars thunder away with blistering black/death tremolo riffs, while at other times things slow down for rousing, headbanging marches like on “Burn in His Light”. But Gorgoroth doesn’t abandon its black metal roots entirely, and there are dozens of examples of nefarious blackened riffs for you to feast on. “Dionysian Rite” delivers devilish dissonance and hate aplenty and “Radix Malorum” features a powerful driving riff that climbs to precipitous heights before plummeting to brutal buzzsaw riffs.

Complementing the more than slight lean into death metal territory is a beefier production to match.  Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt suffered from a number of issues, like the horribly wimpy production. This is fixed on Instinctus Bestialis with a powerful, cleaner production that neither robs the riffs of none of their potency, nor sounds sterile and plastic. Interestingly, almost as counterpoint to the bulkier riffing and production, the album features melody more prominently than previous albums. While it isn’t as central to their sound as it was on their earlier material, there is still a noticeable change towards memorably riffs and potent melodies. This works well with the heavier riffs scattered around and balances out the sound, while still keeping a brutal streak throughout the album.

I was apprehensive at first about the creep of death metal into Gorgoroth’s sound when I first heard whisperings of the new album, but Gorgoroth has managed to quell my fears with Instinctus Bestialis. On initial listens, the new direction didn’t sit well with me. However, Infernus’s riffs are as strong as ever, and the songwriting is impeccable. Repeated listens drive home the album’s staying power, made all the easier by its short runtime. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all to call Instinctus Bestialis Gorgoroth’s greatest album in over a decade. Marked by as much change as familiarity, Instinctus Bestialis requires more than just a simple, cursory listen to let all of the blackened mastery work its way into your subconscious. However, unlike albums that sound great at first but quickly lose their staying power, this has done nothing but grow.