Ptahil – Anti-Flesh Existence (2010)

“Anti-Flesh Existence” marks the band’s debut full-length album, but it only includes 3 tracks and the version we got for review has the two tracks of their “Ortus” EP (which we reviewed here http://www.infernalmasquerade.com/?q=reviews/00743-ptahil-ortus-2010). With such a weird way of presenting your first full-length, we will discuss these three brutal tacks in depth as part of this review.

“In Ritual to Yam” we get an old school Black Metal track in the vein of Bathory, Venom, Hellhamer, etc. With such a raw and powerful sound it quickly makes and impact on the listener, but we feel that it’s somewhat sub-par compared to their songs in “Ortus”. However, this track does set the tone for the following aural assaults that will shake you out of your seat.

The second track “Universal Extinction” is again very raw and ‘traditional’ sounding, but shows a bit of a different pace and some killer tremolo-picking sections that will make your ears bleed. The vocals are as good as always, avoiding the traditional howling/shrieks and using a more ‘classical’ sound to transfer the band’s evil message.  The riffing as we said is far stronger than on the first song, thus creating a more ‘traditional’ Black Metal sound. Up until now, we are surprise that the first two songs last a combined time of 10 minutes, almost the same as the first song of “Ortus”.

Clocking in at 15 minutes, “Anti-Flesh Existence” is the ‘albums’ longest song and features a wide variety of different sections that showcase the band’s abilities to include Doom Metal influences in their music by having some slow-and-painful sections that create a brilliant atmosphere. This track is furious, crushing, and deranged taking the listener back and forth from Black Metal into different realms of weirdness (creepy shit especially near the end), but keeping the band’s trademark sound intact.

After their more cohesive debut EP “Ortus”, we clearly expected a by more from this release. However, after the first two tracks the album-titled song does deliver the Ptahil we completely enjoyed from before. We don’t say these first tracks are bad, but they feel a bit generic. But buyers get a great treat having the “Ortus” EP included in this release, giving them a great value of over 40 minutes of crushing Black/Doom done in a way that only Ptahil can do.

Release: May 28th, 2010

Country: USA