Tuesday, July 11, 2017

BARATHRUM - "FANATIKO" (Saturnal Records, 2017)

Band: Barathrum
Title: Fanatiko
Genre: Black/Doom Metal
Year: 28th April 2017
Time: 36 min circa
Rating: 79/100













It took even 12 long years to hear a new album of Barathrum, a band that, guided since its early days in 1990 (when they were called initially Darkfeast) by the multi-instrumentalist singer Demonos Sova, was known in the underground for its incredible prolificity. In fact, you have to think that Barathrum were able to realize 8 full-lenght albums between 1995 and 2005, and they were already noted as one of the main black metal bands from Finland but also as one of the most particular entities of the entire black metal scene because, for example, of their curious line-up composed of 6 elements (but they were even in 7 for their 2000 "Okkult"!), included two bassplayers as the Greek band Necromantia. Hence, it's strange that Barathrum released nothing new between 2010 and 2017 (in fact, the 2014 "Warmetal" EP was recorded in 1993!), so some thought that the band ceased to exist. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth also because the new album "Fanatiko" was preceded two months before its release by the "Hellspawn" single, and so here we are to talk about the resurrected Barathrum, now supported by Saturnal Records, a Finnish label completely specialized in the Finnish black metal.