Entry 1139 - Haxanu - Snare of Salvation

Style: Black metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: A twin guitar attack that is unlike anything I've heard in a while, stripped down black metal that's all about the riffs

Thoughts: A lot of times I wonder if I have too much black metal in my collection. It's easily my favorite genre within metal... and probably within all of music. It offers such a great variety that many other genre's lack. Much of what I have in my collection is hardly innovative, but it executes the genre so well that I feel compelled to add a physical copy to my lexicon. This is exactly what happened with Haxanu.

I don't remember how I came upon the band, but I do remember being quite smitten with their intense riffs, harrowing vocals, and their insane ability to create riffs that simply slay. There is nothing here that I would consider innovative, but that hardly matters. What matters is the riffs, and oh boy are they tasty. 

What Haxanu does is have one guitar play a nearly dissonant chord as the backing, and then the second guitar will play something very similar but different enough that it creates a fascinating dynamic. The guitars dance around each other over and over again, and create this violent swirling vortex of distortion. Add in some passionate vocals, constant blast beats, and some well executed bass to fill things out and you have the makings of an excellent black metal album. Innovation be damned.