Worship Metal Album Of The Week – Pestilence – Hadeon

It’s a known fact that Patrick Mameli’s Pestilence are one of the most impressive bands to have ever walked this earth.

And we ain’t brown-nosing either!

After conquering thrash with debut album Malleus Maleficarum, bridging the gap between death and thrash with the genre-defining Consuming Impulse, helping to usher in a magisterial era of progressive death metal with Testimony Of The Ancients and then breaking all boundaries with the jazz-fusion meets death metal magnificence of the before-its-time Spheres; the recorded output of Pestilence speaks for itself. These guys were untouchable from 1988 to 1994, re-inventing themselves and re-defining metal with each subsequent release and ensuring their immortal place as one of extreme metal’s greatest pioneers!

Of course, all went quiet during Pestilence’s self-imposed hiatus from 1994 to 2008. That is until fans were treated to a stunningly brutal comeback in 2009, via the formidable shape of Resurrection Macabre; a stunning return to form that cemented Pestilence’s credentials as one of death metal’s most important bands.

Doctrine and Obsideo then followed in 2011 and 2013 respectively and Pestilence were well and truly back on the death metal map, albeit with mixed feelings aimed at Doctrine in particular.

And then another 5 years passed.

Fans waited patiently, expectations grew and then Hadeon suddenly emerged as a full album stream on the 25th January. What to do? Soak it up quick and shove a review out after one listen? Not a fuckin’ chance! Hadeon may be more accessible than Spheres but it’s just as challenging, and multiple listens of this beast are required in order to fully comprehend its futuristic extremity meets old school death metal majesty!

If you need a timeline reference point, we’d say Hadeon is probably the album that should have followed Testimony Of The Ancients (and we love Spheres, so this isn’t a slur), such is its ability to combine the progressive/technical audacity of Testimony with the blunt force trauma of Consuming Impulse.

Pestilence have always sounded otherworldly, and Hadeon is certainly no exception, but there’s such an old school vibe simmering away in the background, that the kid in you who first devoured Consuming Impulse will be fully sated and as happy as a pig in shit! There’s even a little vocoder voice manipulation to keep the nostalgia at high levels!

Another draw is just how damn succinct this album is. With all fat rendered and bones stripped clean, Pestilence have never been so taut. With each track barely scraping past the 3 and a half minute mark, this showing of complete confidence echoes throughout the album, drawing a line under previous endeavours (post 2009) and marking Hadeon out as year zero.

So, soak this shit up, drink it the fuck in, bathe in Hadeon‘s brutal beauty…..this is album of the year material right here! 10/10