YATRA

Filth. Inordinate quantities of the stuff. Sustained, unstoppable and utterly unrepentant. As students of this stuff have doubtless already noticed, YATRA are musical barbarians. Each of the Maryland trio's albums to date has proudly blurred the lines between suppurating sludge, Neanderthal death metal and bug-eyed old-school fury, with 2020's "All Is Lost" standing out as a particularly effective explosion of disdain. Impressively, "Born Into Chaos" goes even deeper into the spiteful mire, with a grotesque but devastating production job backing up the unrelenting caveman attack, and some of the sharpest and most punishing songs they have ever written.

Not since the days of LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR's "War Metal Battle Master" has metal sounded as likely to smash your head in with a spiked club than it does here. Opener "Death Cantation" has all the spikes and chains any speed metal fan could possibly desire, but YATRA are also possessed by the spirit of AUTOPSY and tweaked-out on HIGH ON FIRE's doomy rocket fuel. The resultant hybrid sounds entirely organic, while also giving the distinct impression that the musicians behind it all are mentally ill and possibly dangerous.

Songs like "Wrath Of The Warmaster" and the self-explanatory "Terrorizer" are built from the gnarliest, most knowingly arcane riffing, but there is something deeply wrong and admirably warped about the way YATRA lurch so seamlessly from a straightforward burst of EXCITER-like thrash to some harrowing, downward spiral doom riff. By the time closer "Tormentation" casts its pitch-black spell, you may find yourself concerned for your own safety. A thuggish and obnoxious black metal bombing raid, it reduces the scabby brutality of the preceding 34 minutes down to a series of murderous and defiantly lobotomized riffs, culminating with what might as well be the sound of someone's skull being repeatedly slammed with a steam hammer. Bizarrely, YATRA succeed in making the whole visceral enterprise sound like fun, too. "Born Into Chaos" delivers a huge dose of down-the-line heavy metal nastiness, with a generous side order of weird.