American quintet Progenitor are here with a neat little compendium of tales of the weird and ghostly in the shape of Eldritch Supremacy. Seven tracks in length and a tick under forty minutes in duration, it’s essentially a whistlestop tour around all the black metal bases, allowing the band to showcase their chops without ever getting mired in boring concepts like finesse or, let’s face it, originality.

That’s not to say ES isn’t enjoyable – I’ve been listening to it a lot since Sentinel Daily editor Scott Adams passed it on for my consideration. And in first single, the raw-throated, Cradle–of–Filth-at-their-most-straightforward anthem Beast of Gevaudan, the band have come up with some truly hard-hitting and memorable black metal thunder. It’s merely a comment on the fact that most of what you’ll hear on this album has been done before, and that could be problematic if you’re one of those picky individuals who demands total freshness when they slip the cellophane off a new purchase.

Me? I just like banging my head, so storming tracks like Treasures of Perversion are right up my alley as they bring the hammer down in fine old style. Vocalist Joe Erz and lead guitarist Fletcher Lane are veterans from the days when the band were described as ‘progressive death metal’, and Erz in particular brings some of that feel with him in his vocal approach, adopting the ol’ blast furnace bellow whenever necessary to augment the more expected gravel-larynxed screeching. It’s an approach that pays dividends, giving real impact to the band’s overall asault on the senses.

Talking of assaulting the senses, it’s worth noting how good Eldritch Supremacy sounds for a self-released effort. Lane and Ben Kettel‘s Guitars grind into your brain remorselessly, and the drums and bass, courtesy of Alex Shaw and Brian Sprouse, carry just the right amount of what I like to term ‘low-end bollocks’, keeping things moving along nicely and with real purpose.  It’s obvious the band have spent a long time in the performance and production of this record, and that has paid dividends in the final product they’ve delivered.

As already noted, no new ground is being broken here, but if you enjoy a bit of direct, well-performed extreme metal in your diet every now and then then there’s no reason why you wouldn’t welcome Progenitor into your life with open arms…

Eldritch Supremacy releases on July 14th.