Band: Hell Militia
Title: Last Station On The Road To Death
Label: Debemur Morti
Distribution: xxx
Release date: xxx
Review: CD

France houses one of the most underestimated scenes within the Black Metal scene. However, this is a country with an extremely strong and active underground scene. One of the many more-than-interesting projects, Hell Militia, was formed about ten years ago and consists of members of e.g. Arkhon Infaustus, Vorkreist, Temple Of Baal, Antaeus and Malicious Secrets, to name but a few. Indeed a sweet line-up, isn’t it?
What the band brings with Last Station On The Road To Death is a misanthropic, suffocating and uncomfortable form of underground Black Metal with an old school-atmosphere (the sound clearly has something to do with it) in the vein of Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit. The raw and grim outbursts are mainly fast; however, a few parts are balancing between slow and mid-paced, yet without losing its sonic morbidity.
The production is ultra-dry, covering the whole in a veil of nihilism, flavoured with a somewhat industrialised and mechanic grandeur.
This material sounds enormously malignant and ominous, and that’s the way it’s meant to be. The concept (also lyrically) deals with man’s absurdity of being existent (I do agree, my French friends), and the only certainty: Death! It will bring us salvation, or it will not…
Duration: forty eight minutes.

90/100

Ivan Tibos.