It’s been an awfully productive year for darkness and morbidity, and it’s still fucking March! The weather is getting warmer, the sun is out longer, and for some reason, the malaise cannot be overcome. For good reason. Evil walks the earth. Rules it in many parts. So excuse us if we aren’t feeling it. 

So it’s as fitting a time as ever to get a record crusher from Hungarian death/doom power Rothadás, that being “Töviskert… a kísértés örök érzete… lidércharang.” I don’t speak the language, and Google translate gave me “Thorn Garden … the Eternal Feeling of Temptation … Ghostly Harangue,” and yeah, that about captures the tone of this six-track beast. The two-headed monster consisting of vocalist/drummer Lambert Lédeczy, guitarist/bassist Tobir Hanyi pours a ton of morbid tones, deathly power, and ghastly doom over 45 minutes that’ll you’ll feel in every cell. Oh, and don’t let any language barrier scare you. Even if you’re not aware of what they’re saying (wailing?) the feel is there, and you can’t help but be captured by the harrowing tones and immersive journey into darkness.

“Urnaszellem… szentek csontpora” opens in a doomy cloud, sinking your feelings, the death strains coming on like blades. The pace then pummels, turning fiery and crushing, the guitars ache, and the vocals sicken with guttural sour. The playing then pulverizes, engulfing you in hell, the guitars melting into the soil. “Vértükör” drubs as the growls boil, sludge and muck combine to clog veins, and the guitars heat up and knife through the chaos. The pace dizzies as the growls engorge, everything chugging through a massive heat wave that wilts wills. “Sóhajok kapuja” churns and drubs, the doomy death thickening as speed picks up and makes your heart race. Sickened howls lash out as the pressure mounts, raw fury digs in its fingers, and mesmerizing tones make the growls feel like they’ve come from a dream state to rupture your psyche.

“Tetemek tava… lidércek tánca” opens already crushing with its weight, heated riffs encircling as the band achieves a dangerous level of death crush, if that’s a real thing. Then things devolve into slow-driving filth, calculated hell, and the guitars amplifying the misery before melting away. “Sikoltó füst” has guitars chewing and stomping, the growls hazing, and a bizarre glaze spread over everything. If it feels like your mind is melting, you’re not alone as riffs destroy and tear everything apart, and the steam rises, reddening your flesh along the way. Closer “Az örök isten Lucifer” slowly churns, growls rumbling through airy playing, the well eventually bursting as everything overflows with ferocity. Death mauls as the pace gets angrier and more monstrous, generating a fog that chokes and settles into an eerie cleanliness. There’s even a gothy feel blowing through before the guitars sting, strange singing bellows, and sounds fade in a pit of darkness. 

“Töviskert… a kísértés örök érzete… lidércharang” will stomp your face and psyche in short order, and their numbing pile of doom and death metal is a suffocating and depressing. Rothadás have a might and penchant for misery that digs deep inside of you, leaving you blackened. This is a  beastly album that leverages all of its weight and never relents from making the experience flatten you for the better.

For more on the band, go here: https://rothadasdeathdoom.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here: https://www.mesacounojo.com/shop/rothadas-toviskert-a-kisertes-orok-erzete-lidercharang-lp/

Or here: https://store.pulverised.net/

For more on the label, go here: https://www.mesacounojo.com/

And here: https://www.pulverised.net/