Ch'ahom

***German ritualistic black/death metal warlords Ch'ahom and Sentient Ruin unleash a career-encompassing compilation of the band's entire discography to this day, spanning all the band's long sold out demo tapes from 2016 to 2021, repackaged and remastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios into a glorious one-hour long onslaught of total sonic savagery. This vast and comprehensive restored retrospective both anticipates Ch'ahom's new era forthcoming (with the imminent release of their first official EP and first official full-length album which will follow shortly thereafter) and revisits the origins and existence so far of one of the most barbaric and animalistic entities to have appeared in the German extreme metal underground in recent years. The eighteen bludgeoning tracks here presented show us the band developing their sound and concept over a five-year span of cryptic obscurity, reworking the legendary warcraft of bestial black/death/grind legends like Beherit, Sadogoat, Blasphemy, Sarcófago and Proclamation into an occult and esoteric canvas exploring exotic ancient war cults and death rituals from pre-Columbian South and Central America. The end result is a gruesome terrorscape in which ancient visions of violence, ritualism, mysticism and bloodshed are joined into a ruthless aural assault of total black/death chaos and destruction. The feral aura and lawless primitivism seen on these tracks is further exalted by a raw and blown out production quality which has given a unique and appropriate character to the music through a methodic approach clearly descended from a punk and DIY culture which has vastly enhanced and characterized the superb vision and uniqueness behind the cult of Ch'ahom and its uncompromising craft.