Bethledeign don’t mess around. Track after track off their new album Iconography of Suffering delivers utterly relentless onslaughts that pack one-two punches of blast beat meltdowns and buzzsaw guitars. The Virginia group don’t stop there — they also intertwine unsettling, even sometimes almost nauseating groove with the main blackened death metal attack, and the final result ends up pretty spectacularly powerful. Stream this impressive feat of musical raw power for the first time exclusively below ahead of its official full release this week.
The material packed into Iconography of Suffering was actually first written some time ago at this point. Over a decade ago, guitarist Tony Petrocelly performed with a group called Bethledeign. Although they’ve since moved on to the name Construct of Lethe and released plenty of other material, while that new incarnation of the band floats through a break, Petrocelly has returned to the Bethledeign songs. These new recordings sound remarkably fresh thanks in no small part to their raw power, although Petrocelly and his Bethledeign bandmates including lead guitarist Gus Barr and drummer Giulo Galati also pack in plenty of fascinating and intricate extreme metal intrigue that all comes together in remarkably solid, cohesive songwriting.
Petrocelly explains:
I’m not generally a sentimental person, but I feel some kind of obligation to these songs. To get them out into the ether, if only to do justice to the work all the members of Bethledeign past and present have put into them. I know releasing 15 year old songs from a living dead band that sound very much of their era isn’t the sexiest thing to do. They aren’t Uber Tech and have no Caveman Riffs, but they’re heavy, fast and catchy, and mean a lot to me. I’m lucky to have crossed paths with Gus and Giulio, the energy they injected into these songs brings them to life in ways I wasn’t expecting. Listen to it loud and bang your fucking head.
Without further ado — check out the album below! It’s straightforwardly brutal and great — thanks to remaining just dynamic enough to feel accessible, you can easily jump in with this power as a listener, even while swamped with the misery-infused crush that the album deals with.
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