Hegeroth – Disintegration

Hegeroth is a Poland-based duo consisting of Bila (vocals & drums) and Bene (guitars & bass). They gathered together in 2010 as a six-piece band, but step by step they disintegrated to a two. The main goal was to create the music they both love; a sound full of energy, diversity, variability and multi-layeredness. Recently, Bene sent me their latest, a fifth full-length for review purpose. It’s quite fittingly entitled Disintegration and it contains nine (packed in roughly 34 effective minutes) semi-length tracks.

Disintegration comes as a follow-up to a highly acclaimed and enthusiastically praised 2022 predecessor Sacra Doctrina. Before that they’ve further released three more full-length records, namely; Three Emperors Triangle (2014), Degenerate (2019) and Perfidia (2020). In other words; we’re dealing here with highly productive band that still nursing the good old extreme metal key values and trademark sound. The lyrical content is still focusing on ‘mocking the mindlessness, dogmatism and meanness resulting from the imposition of only the right model of thinking and religious oppression’. The songwriting on Disintegration is quite interesting with nice composition structure. The same goes for the production; where all songs are well balanced, while the overall sound is crispy, fresh and modern, yet unpolished. It might be the best production in their career, which suits this kind of music very well.

Disintegration is a further expansion of a great legacy of this often underrated band/project. My personal favourites off Disintegration are “The Dirt”, mainly due to its fast and aggressive old-school black metal vibe accompanied by some slower disturbing moments, and a track named “The Shepherd”, due to its harsh nature, excellent build-up, nasty guitar melodies and shrieking, dark and dirty vocals. Speaking of vocals, Bila somehow adds aggression, intensity, grit, and demonic atmosphere to every single song from Disintegration.

Disintegration is an coherent and open album, not so complex to approach. Furthermore, it’s an album where this hard-hitting Polish duo successfully blends some dark melodics with more diverse parts and elements of other sub-genres of metal. In other words; it’s an interesting, multilayered and mature record, that will please all black metal worshippers and esp. fans of Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, Immortal, Emperor, Mayhem, Dødheimsgard and similar scene giants from the 90s.

For further info go to https://hegeroth.bandcamp.com/ or band’s official website at http://hegeroth.com/