Infernus

Hate Eternal’s sixth album features their most progressive and expansive music ever. Sure, there’s plenty of the full-blast death metal that’s their trademark, with Erik Rutan’s psychedelic, hovering guitar riffs and ranting vocals propelled by JJ Hrubovcak’s throbbing bass and new drummer Chason Westmoreland’s relentless blast beats. But as Infernus goes along, surprising compositional touches begin to emerge. The title track begins with an ominous, dramatic spoken interlude, and adopts a tumbling rockslide rhythm recalling Morbid Angel‘s “God of Emptiness.” “Zealot, Crusader of War” shifts from a slow, threatening crawl to a pummeling barrage and back again. And the album’s final two tracks, the instrumental “Chaos Theory” and the concluding “O’ Majestic Being, Hear My Call,” are tremendous. The latter adds warped vocal treatments and a dramatic, stunningly epic arrangement—it’s one of the most ambitious songs Rutan’s ever written, while remaining a jackhammering assault.