Some of you might remember this German band who released a couple of albums on Osmose in the latter half of the 90's. I believe the band have split up as of the year 2000. "Hosanna Bizarre" was their debut from 1996, followed by "Trans Cunt Whip" in 1998. Taking into account the cover photographs, you could call Tsatthoggua a Satanic, S&M black metal band. With that bondage/masochistic streak running through their concept just as deep as their Satanic beliefs, I was hoping for something a bit different musically from these guys. Unfortunately, that was not to be. What you have here is speed for the sake of speed, garden variety black metal, with buzzsaw guitars, high register screams, occasional usage of keyboards and female backing vocals, and a few additional keyboard interludes. Pretty boring stuff if you ask me. The riffs are generic, the sparse keyboard injections are weak, and the music lacks any sort of real atmosphere. The album's relatively short running time (a little over half an hour) might prevent it from really boring the hell out of you, but most likely it will still have you continuously looking at your watch because this music is not exactly a big attention grabber. But I guess this would be suitable to put on as a background noise when you are doing the dishes or something. This band may appeal to the fans of hyper-speed black metal, but anyone looking for something beyond the high level of velocity should look elsewhere.

© 2002 boris