Description

Much was expected of Black Breath ever since they exploded out of the Pacific Northwest like a, well, breath of fresh air, behind their self-released EP Razor to Oblivion. Oddly enough, though, at the time of the group’s signing by Southern Lord, much was made of their hardcore roots (think Discharge, Disfear, and local heroes Poison Idea), instead of their even more pronounced death metal qualities — in particular the amazingly abrasive and infectious Rot ‘n’ Roll style first championed by Sweden’s Entombed on their 1993 watershed Wolverine Blues LP. The reason this bears pointing out is that Black Breath’s debut album, Heavy Breathing, is almost entirely dominated by the death metal influence, and hardcore is relegated to the crusty vocal inflections from frontman Neil McAdams, who has otherwise embraced Cookie Monster growls along with heavy metal’s typical horror/gore/fantasy subject matter. The band’s songwriting is consistently good, but there is a decent amount of stylistic variation between the individual tracks. “Children of the Horn” wouldn’t be out of place on a Motörhead album, “Unholy Virgin” is like a brutal, hardcore take on what could be a George Thorogood and the Destroyers track (at least until the tremolo, kicks in, that is) and album closer “Wewhocannotbenamed” could be a long lost Clandestine outtake. In spite of all of this genre-hopping, the guitar tone and technique, vocal venom and intense thrash drumming give a sense of unity to the whole affair that results in none of the songs sounding out of place. This is one hell of an impressive debut album and leaves me drooling in anticipation for its sequel.

Track list:
1. Black Sin (Spit On The Cross)
2. Eat The Witch
3. Escape From Death
4. I Am Beyond
5. Virus
6. Heavy Breathing
7. Children Of The Horn
8. Fallen
9. Unholy Virgin
10. Wewhocannotbenamed