NOIRSUAIRE

Prolific purveyors of dirty, underground black metal, NOIRSUAIRE operate at the raw end of the genre's spectrum, but with more than enough sonic depth and songwriting efficacy to stand outside of the self-consciously DIY, necro-as-fuck world of unlistenable horror. Their first full-length album, "The Dragging Poison" has an abrasive, hostile production that frequently threatens to drift into outright chaos, but never quite does. Unleashed just after Christmas, it might just be the perfect antidote to festive complacency.

As with many bands at the pointy, antisocial end of the black metal scene, NOIRSUAIRE eschew pomp and polish in favor of scabrous, hateful riffs that fester, blister and burn with malicious intent. But read between the disorientating lines of pure noise that infect these songs, and "The Dragging Poison" is, in reality, a fairly melodic and straightforward affair. The riffs propelling the likes of "The Trance Of Bedless Bones" and "Fogged By The Leaves Of Pestilence" would work just as well in a more sonically forgiving context, but here they are left to squirm and bubble with brutish abandon. Vocalist N surfs the waves of spite like a pro, belching out his unholy declarations like some infernal gatekeeper, often wandering into pure malevolence as his words are forced into these songs' relentlessly noisy fabric. Avowedly disgusting in delivery, "Possessed By A Malignant Lust" and "Enshrouded In Rabid Repugnance" are invigorating and uncompromising, but still closely tethered to black metal tradition. The final effect of that seemingly dichotomous blend is to pulverize the listener with aggression and speed — the blastbeats are among the most ferocious available to human ears right now — amid faint echoes of the furious filth perpetuated by CARPATHIAN FOREST or peak GORGOROTH.

The title track is the most obvious high point. Genuinely catchy and just about on the right side of all-out insanity, its swarming riffs and incensed screams are stained with melancholy and steeped in harrowing, surreal nightmares. NOIRSUAIRE are clearly unconcerned with fulfilling any of modern extreme metal's requirements, but there is some evidence here that one possible way forward would be to enhance the sonic clarity and rein in some of the chaotic excess. Until such a move is made, "The Dragging Poison" will remain an utterly distinctive burst of oppressive savagery, with several tons of unsettling atmosphere, and a psychotic insistence on blazing away like a grand crescendo at the end of humanity's Earth-killing tenure. Fans of big budget black metal may find that "The Dragging Poison" is too harsh and too relentless, but in terms of artful, eloquent violence, NOIRSUAIRE are in a wild and wayward world of their own.