“Death/doom and an impossibly long Hungarian album name? That sounds tasty!” were the words I told my deranged, hairy mind and set out to wander in the morbid realm Rothadás concocted. Six, rather long tracks stood between me and the sweet relief of death, and I was so ready to tackle them with the utmost priority.
I got immediately hit by a barrage of rich sounding doom ridden death metal from the deepest pits of hell. Often death/doom bands excel at one and kinda hop along on the other genre. Rothadás seem to have both mastered to their advantage. When they speed up, they create one of the grooviest death metal in recent memory. It still retains all of that massive sound, but the percussion section catapults the sound into a neck-breaking universe. Despite Rothadás‘ speed, I would still keep them in the death/doom bracket. Even when fast, the sound radiates gloom and despair. The really doomy parts are carried mainly by two things: crushing slow riffs and amazing vocal performance.
I could write a full-fledged review solely based on the first track “Urnaszellem… szentek csontpora” which is a casket full of dead bodies tasty riffs and massive doomy atmosphere. Rothadás keep the album glued together with a set of beautiful, almost melodic riffs that serve as the atmosphere makers while they switch between hefty doom and rabid OSDM. The relentless energy that oozes from the album is intoxicating. “Sóhajok kapuja” is a 7 minutes long aural onslaught of the finest nature, unforgiving death metal that has the energy of a free-ranging bulldozer frolicking in a graveyard. Rothadás are not inventing anything new here, all they do has been done multiple times and the review would be two pages longer if I were to list all the influences I hear, but they combine it into a magnificent stack of death/doom. Tracks like “Sikoltó füst” introduce a stompy rhythm paired with a lingering guitar lead that forces me to rethink my stance against voluntary body movements. The band even left a very nice surprise to the very end of their final track — a refreshing clean chanting passage which feels like a final extrication and it works really well in the context of the whole album.
Töviskert… a kísértés örök érzete… lidércharang stands as one of the finest modern death/doom albums I’ve encountered, checking every box for an early Album of the Year contender. From start to finish, it refuses to compromise, adding a mighty entry to the ever-expanding death metal landscape. Rothadás executes their vision with iron-clad dedication and remarkable confidence, crafting something that feels both familiar and frighteningly potent.
