Album Review: Mithridatum - Harrowing
Reviewed by Dan Phipps
The band contain former members of a couple of prominent US death metal bands Abhorrent (who were previously signed to Mithridatum’s current label Willowtip) and The Faceless. Now the Mithridatum sound certainly contains a technical edge which the members prior bands were both well known for however they are not just rehashing past glory and providing a carbon copy of past projects. On February 3rd will release Harrowing which is a rollercoaster of extreme metal showing how to blend a number of ferocious elements and styles together in a singular artform.
Built up of five tracks, Harrowing is a rather unique blend of extreme metal. Mithridatum as mentioned above do not fit into a singular genre and definitely do not play a traditional style as they walk a tightrope between black and death metal with the only real true identifying characteristics of the album is its uneasy and dissonant tone and atmosphere. Harrowing is not always traditionally heavy in sound, the record is a journey and will continuously take you down a variety of rabbit holes as it twists through sheer aggression moving right through in to harsh melody all with the common goal of making the record an intense listen and with every track having a run time of over 6 minutes it’s a release which will demand 100% of your attention to take in during each listen.
As much as the record is built to give you a very dark and uneasy listening experience, the record does not do this at the expense of its sound and overall production values. Mithridatum provides a sharp end product which sounds fantastic.
Harrowing certainly offers a real explosion of harsh atmosphere crafted into quite vicious sounding extreme metal. Mithridatum have crafted a selection of tracks which navigate all extreme styles well and should not fall into a particular category and get lost. If you are interested in exceptionally crafted daunting and dark extreme metal with a real severe kick then I highly recommend giving this record your time.
