Harvest Gulgaltha – I
Nothing beats mystery, especially when it comes to anything from the blackness. Harvest Gulgaltha have only been around a few years, but even with only two releases under foot, including a demo, it sounds like they’ve been lurking in tombs for much longer than that. Finding anything about them is near impossible. They’re from somewhere in the United States, unspecified, and pictures on their Facebook page (link at the bottom of this review) have them bedecked in darkened hoods with almost no cause to believe them anything close to human. After hearing this reissue, it’s possible they may not even be living. I was actually a demo they released in 2012, and after cutting loose two years later with Necrosophic, a compilation of unreleased EP tracks, Nuclear War Now! Productions picked up their first release for a comeback on 12″, in hopes of spreading this diseased, necromantic form of blackened death metal into the blood of more converts. Shall ye light candles in their honor and cover thyselves in black?
Of course, for there is no other way. I is short, but it’s addicting and to-the-point, not to mention entirely austere. That’s kind of the reason it’s getting attention, and why the name Harvest Gulgaltha is beginning to spread. These guys assume nothing, they have nothing to prove, they’re just here to play the most primitive form of blackened death, the kind that fossilized into artifice so long ago a Lovecraft reference would infantilize it. It’s artifice on which a Christian temple was built centuries ago to purge its heathen defilement. But no symbols, no cross, no sacred words can entomb something like this for very long. Oh, watch as the edifice of dogma crumbles around, and in the rumble there it this, this thing, this I, unbreakable, indestructible, pure darkness.
I is so ancient it spreads blackness into the flesh and bones when merely touched, it’s that kind. Harvest Gulgaltha use some deep tuning and heavy grime in their sound, but it’s incredibly accessible at the same time, and this is what makes it such a tantalizing poison. Like lead, it goes down sweet, and it builds until the inevitable heart attack and/or brain damage. These guys use a careful texture that envelops like pure darkness in the deepest chasm, mainly driven musically through spectacular riffs, especially that second track, “Manifestation of Nightmares”, which utilizes some impressive tone development in spite of how drowning their overall sound is, with this almost fragile iciness in distortion as the drums pound the marrow out of your bones. But the finality of it all is in the vocals, which have such a diversity in approach it almost creates a new listen out of every track the second, third, and ad infinitum. Wails in some dark pits, moaning, screams, more direct roars, quite impressive in that aspect, and it makes I far removed from being a one-track album. These guys are preparing for something big, bet on it.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Harvest Gulgaltha – I
Nuclear War Now! Productions
4.6 / 5
