Heresiarch - Hammer of Intransigence
Review: This attempt at invisibly innovative death metal mixes the charging rhythms of Angelcorpse and Revenge with the infectious chorus hooks and pounding low-end riffing of American giants like Goreaphobia and Monstrosity. The result is relentless but varied enough to both be a satisfying death metal experience and to be recognizably new and not of the past.
Riffs clamp onto a rhythmic figure like early Immolation, then ride the rhythm and break it with deviations into chromatic skids and thunderous muted-strum fills, mixing riff and transition into a schematic of pounding ferocity. Like Angelcorpse, this band refuse to relent and convert the more stately European metals into an unabashed pursuit of raw release.
1. Abomination (1:02)
2. Carnivore (5:21)
3. Iconoclasm (2:43) 
4. Thunorrad (3:16)
5. Conflagration (4:15)
6. Intransigent (5:28)
Detuned and often plodding between a few chords arrayed on a chromatic and open interval, Heresiarch incorporate the dark and melancholy atmosphere of slow suppurating decay that early Tampa death metal captured, but add to it the higher-pitched vocals and kettling battery attacks that give this record some of its most intense thrust.
Few are going to associate this with the past. There is a 21st century nihilism pervading the fabric of this music, one that has given up on all pretense of social order or standards, and now is a feral animal converting otherwise innocent pastimes into a weapon for deconstruction of the deconstructive impulse in our society, replacing it with primal rage and aggression.