Impalement – The Dawn Of Blackened Death

Impalement is a one-man project from Swiss multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Beliath, a band that he founded back in 2019 as, quote: ‘Impalement is forged out of True Metal’s Passion combined with Death Metal’s brutality and Black Metal’s profound soul!”. And, after giving the record a few spins I am not only forced to agree with this very consise statement, but at the same time reluctantly accept that I have no means of conveying the same statement as efficiently as the musician himself. What I can do instead, is go into some amount of detail about how he pulled it off and why I am wholeheartedly recommending it. 

Now to sum up, Beliath is by no means a newcomer to the world of music, having been a live guitarist for legendary Nargaroth since 2013 as well as playing bass for German Black Metal act Mor Dagor since 2015 – Already giving him first-hand experience with two of the three ‘traditional’ instruments found in both old-school Death and Black Metal. His ability to merge the two genres however, as well as mixing his multi-layered growls on top of it (and the use of drums, however he went about that), that is something new I had yet to see prior to the inception of this band since I had no prior experience with Impalement directly before researching him for the sake of this little scribble. 

As for the band itself, is has so far released two Full-length releases (with The Dawn Of Blackened Death being the second release) to massive critical acclaim – Enough to prompt Impalement to go touring with other prominent Black Metal acts, further cementing that this brainchild is definitely not to be overlooked. 

Overall, as the quote above so annoyingly well describes, Impalement has managed to do something I would argue only a handful of bands so far has managed to do succesfully – Namely, mixing the two probably best-known genres of Metal and creating something with strong ties within both camps, yet still transcending it, becoming its own. 

And, even more controversially, still appealing to fans of both of its parent genres, much like Dissection, God Dethroned and Belphegor has done before. And while this, at its core, is a one-man show (and a very potent one at that), several other notable musicians seem to agree, prompting a cooperation in the past with members of both early Cradle Of Filth, Bethlehem and beforementioned Belphegor (whom they also joined for what I am told was a very intriguing European tour with Batushka as the main headliner). 

All in all, Beliath has, for the second time, managed to string together seven powerfully energetic tracks into another notch on his discography – This time lasting nearly forty-one intense minutes. 

https://impalementofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-dawn-of-blackened-death 

https://www.facebook.com/ImpalementOffical/