Feels like with each release Churchburn scale a new height and plumb a new emotional low. ‘Genocidal Rite’ is the band’s third full-length and a glorious brute of a thing: a mixture of ugly lumps, jagged edges and foul, tar-like ooze. Imagine the pained wrench of Noothgrush dragged unwillingly through the obsidian prism of first-wave black metal and you’re just about there, but only if you take a detour via Confessor’s nagging, obtuse angles. In amid all this are some surprisingly majestic guitar solos, and even a moment that sounds like Mark Knopfler trying to figure out ‘Private Investigations’ while glumly sat outside a Spanish restaurant. Marvellously bleak and devastatingly heavy, ‘Genocidal Rite’ is a huge and malignant piece of work from a band far more people should be paying attention to.
