Lord of Two Horns
Out 27th June on Nuclear Winter Records
Drawn and Quartered remind us that – despite my growing cynicism – you should never write anyone off before their time. 2021’s ‘Congregation Pestilence’ was a tight but forgettable iteration of dark American death metal. One that led me to conclude that we could expect little more than solid hits of serviceable death metal from these Seattle old hats going forwards. But then we got the debut album from their long running black/death side project Plague Bearer in 2023, which delivered an unexpectedly dramatic iteration of Immolation infused dark metal.
It seems that this complementary left turn has righted the good ship Drawn and Quartered for its latest outing, ‘Lord of Two Horns’. Not only are the band flexing their grandiose melodic muscles alongside a reinvigorated, primal death metal vitality. There is a frenetic, chromatic energy to a lot of the riffs that looks almost random were it not for the extent to which they are repeated, a feature that called to mind late Averse Sefira.
The production eschews any obvious aesthetic loyalty. Instead delivering a contemporary, polished sheen with plenty of bight. The drums are mechanistic yet spontaneous. The guitar tone is overbearing but organic, filling every orifice of the mix with chainsaw like intensity. Much like the recent Plague Bearer effort, lead guitar material floats to the top with pleasing regularity, enhancing the dramatic stakes with considered and deliberate harmonies or else more frenetic, panicky sirens of chaotic energy. Just as liable to accent certain themes as they are to elevate or signpost moments of particular import. Guttural vocals remain the staple, consistent but for the most part leaving the music itself to convey the requisite intensity.
Alongside the marked sense of gothic grandeur permeating this album, Drawn and Quartered rarely let up in terms of tempo and momentum. Any switch to half time is still signposted by a relentless barrage of riffing energy, only serving to hammer home the visceral intentionality behind the music. Beyond that, a cavalcade of blast-beats and choppy percussive punches bludgeon the listener with a persistence rarely seen since the days of ‘Legion’.
Hate Meditations 
Huh, maybe I should revisit this? I thought this was a big disappointment and easily the weakest album in the band’s discography, it struck me as being very dry with a lack of interesting riffs aside from “Three Rivers of Poison”, and it was doubly disappointing after Congregation Pestilence, which IMO was their best album since Merciless Hammer of Lucifer and was one of the freshest voices that death metal has had in years.
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