A Year of Music

Antaeus are surprising for a French black metal band, because they subsume the weirdness beneath an assaultive barrage that reminds me of Destroyer-era Gorgoroth. It’s seriously mean stuff, made more interesting by the traditional chromatic filigrees and hints towards atonality that are par for the course in other French groups like Blut Aus Nord. The drumming is a particularly interesting blur of triggered blastbeats and high-speed grindcore flailing, glued together with unpredictable stops, starts and industrial ambient interludes.I’ve been looking for something like this, and other fans of Anaal Nathrakh should give Blood Libels a listen.