{"id":10451,"date":"2012-02-27T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=10451"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:07:58","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:07:58","slug":"album-review-asphyx-deathhammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-asphyx-deathhammer\/","title":{"rendered":"ASPHYX – Deathhammer (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASPHYX
Deathhammer<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nCentury Media (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Eight albums in and Asphyx are still suffocating our souls with their bleak blend of death and doom, and with Martin van Drunen steering the ship, I can\u2019t see this beast ceasing in its destructive ways. As soon as that opening trudge hits the ears, you know it\u2019s Asphyx; Paul Baayens\u2019 distinctive guitar sound is so pummelling in its harshness, it compliments Martin\u2019s angst-ridden roar so well.<\/p>\n

\u2018Into The Timewastes\u2019 has all the brutality of an old school death metal track, rising from a sombre plod to a speedier Entombed-meets-Obituary style assault. The title track is more fleeting at under three minutes as it shifts between a pacey Bob Bagchus drum before schizophrenically slowing and then finding its feet as a demented head-jerker.<\/p>\n

The lengthy \u2018Minefield\u2019 is an entirely different kettle of darkness, a slo-mo doomy plod laced with Drunen\u2019s harsh yelps and a down-tuned guitar sound that literally shakes the gravestones. Easily my favourite track on the album, this seven-minute ashen epic is about as stark as Asphyx get and at three minutes in the track, while still bellowing from below the earth, twists on a perverse riff and juddering Alwin Zurr bass, but the track never rises above that sullen whine.<\/p>\n

Asphyx show their brutal side however on the frenetic \u2018Of Days When Blades Turned Blunt\u2019 and \u2018Vespa Crabro\u2019, with Martin van Drunen still coughing up those shards of glass as the riffs pummel the cranium with the death-hammer they\u2019ve created. Of course, what these Dutch monsters do best is drag you into their quicksand of dooooom; just check out the mighty, twisted riff of \u2018We Doom You To Death\u2019 which lives up to its ominous title.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the eight-minute album closer \u2018As The Magma Mammoth Rises\u2019 that bashes in the last coffin nail. This track is a vast landscape of wintry bereavement; it feeds on all that is solemn, embracing the shadows in its miry tentacles courtesy of another serpentine riff and avalanche of trudging drums.<\/p>\n

Believe me, after 50 minutes of Deathhammer<\/em> you\u2019ll be reaching for the sunbed in order to get some rays, however false, onto that cracked skin of yours. You know what you\u2019re getting with Asphyx; it\u2019s a despicable old school sound that really punishes with whatever pace it chooses to travel at. Deathhammer<\/em> is one of the best albums to emerge from 2012, but let\u2019s face it, it was always going to be.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ASPHYXDeathhammer Century Media (2012)Rating: 8\/10 Eight albums in and Asphyx are still suffocating our souls with their bleak blend of death and doom, and with Martin van Drunen steering the ship, I can\u2019t see this beast ceasing in its destructive ways. As soon as that opening trudge hits the ears, you know it\u2019s Asphyx; Paul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,533],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-asphyx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10451"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11986,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10451\/revisions\/11986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}