Good stuff this, from a band that has tended to pass me by in the past. However spending some time with All Hell‘s latest offering, Sunsetter, leads me to believe it might be a good idea to go back and revisit some of their old albums again – and in a bit more depth next time.

Six years in the making, Sunsetter is the sound of a band putting it’s Demons to the sword. At times you can feel the struggles the band were going through puting this album together – not least on the achingly emotional semi-instrumental The Flood and The Death (I know you can’t have a ‘semi-instrumental’ but take a listen and you’ll know what I mean. Elsewhere, however, the band maintain a business-as-usual grubby intensity, full of nice little death grunts and nods to the old Gods (or, indeed vaguely close cousins like Goatwhore) whilst still injecting their own blackened personalities into everything they touch.

Dominus Sanguis, Domina Nox comes ripping as an early highlight, whilst best track Sacrifice to Shadow rides in just before the last rites are administered, but the quality on show here is uniformly high and on another day I might find myself doling out the props to Behold The Night or Path of Cain. Sunsetter’s that kind of album.

At eleven tracks and thirty two minutes in duration the urgency and spark is palpable, and the band collectively don’t take their foot off the hammer long enough for the listener to draw breath or wonder what might be in the fridge for tea. This is one of those albums that is not for the listener – quite the reverse. You are their to witness the record do it’s bidding, to wrap you around it’s little finger and then dash your brains out on the sink with a wicked grin on it’s face and flecks of spittle in it’s beard. And, surprisingly enough, that’s rather a pleasant thing to have done to you. Bravo!

Sunsetter is out now.