Metal is an international Brotherhood (Siblinghood is more appropriate but sounds much less cool). It acts as a universal connecting conduit between cultures and places. This allows far flung and distant cultures to communicate across the world, their own sense of national and personal identity. Sepultura, with their focused and internal approach on the Roots album, educated many about the native populace of Brazil; while S.o.a.D wear their Armenian heritage proudly on their sleeves as well as in the very fabric of their music.
Well Tenegger Cavalry have the globe shrinking capacity to do the same for Mongolia as Sepultura and System have done for their own nations. Even though this is their 7th full length album they feel as though they are truly finding their stride. Infusing a vivacious and bold sense of modern song writing with flesh searing metal and gorgeously evocative native tones.
Blood Sacrifice Shaman the most aptly named record I have ever encountered, as the effect of listening to it is profoundly supernatural. This other-worldliness, which surges and ebbs through the body like some ritualistic narcotic, is just one of many reasons I have to recommend this as perhaps the most essential release of the year so far. The blending of native Throat singing and other Mongolian instruments such as the Tobshuur and Morin Khuur, into the mix is a joy to behold. Pollinating their charging thrash riffs with an aromatic mysticism so pervasive that it’s almost intoxicating.
One is drawn into the experience by degrees; the expert hand of a Shaman guiding your every move. Slowly supplanting your human form for that of its temporary Animist replacement, your spirit animal.
Taken separately, the component parts of this record are fairly unremarkable. The metal is without being rude, fairly pedestrian thrash and the native music, is just that; home-grown and full of the qualities one might expect. However it is the flawless and progressive synthesis of these otherwise dispirit spheres that have made B.S.S such a compelling prospect.
Their ability to complete this fusion has created an essential and forcing aesthetic within the music, covering every element from syncopation to harmonic structure. The eerily mystic nature of the Mongolian Dreamtime fills the metallic sections with an eye twitching hypnotism. While the bold and brazen thrash adds a kinetic direction to the naturally meandering Mongolian melodies.
As is true for any Slash Genre, true success only comes when each disparate element emphasises and improves the others. It is through the honing of this skill that has made Tenegger Cavalry into the band they are today. A band so undervalued, that it’s almost criminal. Who are able to highlight resonant frequencies and amplify them; modulating forms until the Sine waves overlap, turning a single snake into a figure 8, the never ending number, which allows us through its Ouroboric form for us to merge with the infinite.
This is the role of the Shaman. Always was is so, always shall it be.
– John Whitmore
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