Alghol – From The Caverns [EP]

Little is known about One Man USBM artist Alghol, other than that he is from Portland, Maine and has only a handful of releases to his name. Be that by choice or otherwise is irrelevant, as the art is what matters here.

‘From the Caverns’ lives up to it’s name immediately as the listener is greeted with the sounds of a dripping cavern accompanied by a brief but melodic keyboard introduction, before alarmingly being thrown into a vortex of blastbeats and swarming, fuzzy guitars in the vein of early Darkthrone, not a spectacular track by any means but a solid introduction to what lies ahead. The second track ‘Blood Brew’ however, is where ‘From the Caverns’ finds it’s feet with some superbly chunky guitar riffs keeping the foot tapping without losing any of the coldness. The standout track however is ‘The Skeletal Key’ which begins as a slow, sludgy and haunting piece, seemingly continuing on from the aforementioned keyboard introduction before hitting a furious crescendo and dipping back to the underground

Creating this kind of music as a one man band is not easy and although ‘From the Caverns’ is heavy on the Burzum & Darkthrone worship, it’s a solid EP and a good sign of what is to come if the Alghol project continues.