Vengeful Spectre - "Vengeful Spectre" (2020)

Harsh times often require harsh music. In a sense, then, Vengeful Spectre, a black metal act from Guandong, China, is both perfectly timed, and placed, to score the sheer screaming horror of it all.

This may sound glib, but you can't deny the symbolism, or the fact that the band has worried fans asking about their status, and, indeed, health. 

For all that, its new album (out now on Pest Productions) is well packaged, with excellent, and evocative, cover art, and a novel sound which combines the more accessible end of the black metal spectrum (think Bulldozer, or late stage Immortal) with traditional Chinese instruments.

This could have been naff beyond words, but instead, it works very well. The haunted, forlorn and ever so slightly creepy trad instruments contrast well with the heavy, blasting beats and riffs. 

In fact, there are points where the old school strings and flutes give the album a vibe more like a particularly bleak, and desolate Western, set in a desolate Idaho ghost town during midwinter. (Strange but true.) That wasn't the intention, but it still works.

The band blends it all well, which is more difficult than one might imagine, given how different the two styles are. It also knows when NOT to deploy the strings and flutes, which is something a lot of metal bands using 'folk' instruments never quite manage. 

(Skyforger never had this problem, of course. But that's because they are Skyforger, and I will fight you in a car park if you don't agree with me.)

But we're here for the metal, and oh, how it rocks. Vengeful Spectre fires out track after track of catchy and confident machine gun blasts, riffs and screams. The formula works well - find something that works, and keep doing it. 

As tracks such as The Expendables, Wailing Wrath, and Rain and Carnage show, the bold, confident and effective formula is also consistent. It drips with menace. It knows where you live, and it's going to get you. 

The only issue, if there is an issue, is that this is on the accessible end of the black metal spectrum. The band plainly loves metal (and flutes) in general, and it shows. It's well produced, and it wants to take its listener on a journey, rather than crush them with atonal malice. 

Put simply, if you want your black metal made by bands who want you to die, other options are available. Vengeful Spectre, for its part, just wants to make good black metal, and do it time and again.

SHEEPSCORE: Eerily Good Fun (4.5 out of 5)

Available now on Pest Productions and the official Vengeful Spectre Bandcamp page.