Theotoxin – Fragment: Totenruhe
Release Date: 28th October 2022
Label: AOP Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Belphegor, Watain, MGLA, Behemoth.
Review By: Rick Farley
Ascending from the catacombs of Vienna, Austria in 2016, Theotoxin offers us album number four. The supreme dark art of Fragment: Totenruhe. An intense modern album with an unholy love of black metals second wave of corpse painted bearers of darkness. A Scandinavian feel, mixed with small tinges of sinister death metal, builds a gloriously frostbitten jaggedness. Complex with a refined use of melody, unafraid of being catchy, the album goes from frozen tremolo bursts to a slow crawl with a dramatic sense of melancholy. Imposing thrashy nastiness and blast beats are often meet with haunting eeriness and hellish blazes of high-pitched shrills. Bits of atmosphere, bits of progressive textures and a crisp production keeps the rawness while bringing out the old into the new flawlessly.
World, Burn for Us starts with some harmonized guitars slightly hinting at the melody. Higher note tremolo picking, and blasting, ignites the verse ablaze with infernal nihilism. The tormented shrieking is enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck. Strained raspy screams sound as if the actual devil is approaching. The track sways back and forth with higher to lower depth of tone from the guitars and vocals, giving the feel of two different singers. You can feel how hateful they are, never offering any respite. The slight hints of melody take a backseat to the devouring brutality of the track. World, burn for us. World, die for us. World, lay down for us. While the world ends.
Towards the Chasm is a slow crawl of devilish menace, hinting at a slight Behemoth inspiration. Its ungodly darkness slithers along like a venomous snake headed beast. The wretchedly slow textures of the guitars with stinging faster paced melodies move on to fits of dark groove and malice filled melancholy. Sinister keyboards add flair for the dramatic. The overall feel of the track has an oppressive droning quality about it before it builds to an eclipse of blackened frenetic chaos. A delicate clean guitar passage with flamenco style melodies ends the track, quelling the listener to dissolution.
Perennial Lunacy slashes at your throat with a punkish conviction and thrashy guitars. Straight for the kill aggression, daring anyone to listen. This, Catastrophe of Flesh, and a number of other mercilessly assaulting songs, all fast and ugly as hell, will keep all the Trve Klvt knuckle draggers extremely happy. Of Rapture and Dissolution is a gloom filled nightmare, going from haunting eeriness to frigid waters with blackened death metal crunch. There’s a hell of a cover of Marduk’s Frontschwein. It doesn’t stray far from the original path, but does have a more aggressive bite to it. Typically, I’m not fan of cover songs, but this is an excellent way to end the record.
Fragment: Totenruhe was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Klangschmiede Studio E by Markus Stock. Guitars and bass were recorded at Oakpath Audio. The record is sharp, frigid, and tonally modern. Clarity mixed with a savage rawness left intact from high gain treble. The bass has a warm anchoring effect not typical with black metal but works extremely well. On a side note, the cover art, done by Jose Gabriel Alegría, is seriously badass.
Theotoxin has created an environment of aggression, malice, and elegant darkness within the albums forty-six-minute runtime. It snakes, contorts, and attacks with gnarled intensity. Just pure wicked sounding black metal with plenty of venomous atmosphere. Put this on your must-hear list. 
(4 / 5)
