CEMETERY URN - Barbaric Retribution (LP)

Vinyl LP pressing. Following up the momentum created by 2017's poised 'n' powerful Cemetery Urn, Cemetery Urn strike with arguably their most vicious record yet. Ever aptly titled, Barbaric Retribution indeed makes good on the band's self-branded "Australian Barbaric Death Metal" tag, taking the martial foundation of their earlier work and locating a blood-red-raw humidity which makes their incendiary maelstrom all the more overwhelming. Cemetery Urn have never been short on powerful production - always, a balance between crush and clarity is sought - but Barbaric Retribution, perhaps due to its take-no-prisoners title, pushes the intensity to near-suffocating levels. But within that unremitting savagery lurks a greater number of doomed-out down-tempo twists and some truly demonic soloing, all ever suggestive of the very literal Armageddon at the heart of their aesthetic. Above all, Barbaric Retribution truly proves that unrelenting intensity and top-shelf songwriting need not be mutually exclusive terms - or, more to the point, that Barbaric Retribution is indeed Barbaric Retribution!