Beats and yelling: Moonchapel

Three Faced Trinity for a Two-Faced World
Out 13^th February on Horror Pain Gore Death Productions

The obscurantist curveball that is Moonchapel continue their output apace. Following their harrowing debut ‘Chasms of Ash and Inequity’ in 2025, they have since put out two more albums, ‘Famine Weaponized’ released the same year, and now we have this latest offering, ‘Three Faced Trinity for a Two-Faced World’. Such frequency would usually raise suspicions of diminishing returns, and whilst that’s partially the case for Moonchapel – neither this nor the previous effort quite living up to the debut – their status as the true inheritors of early Beherit and traditional USBM in the likes of Demoncy, Black Funeral, and Profanatica remains intact.

Whilst the musicianship and production have been tightened up (marginally), one could argue that this is a detriment for this style, forcing the music to relinquish the abstract threat it cast over the listener through the incongruous randomisation of its different elements. But the point is relative. In the context of modern extreme metal, ‘Three Faced Trinity for a Two-Faced World’ is a profoundly unpolished experience. Sloppy, loose drums underpin the music with the lilting gait of an animated corpse. The dominant, bassy guitar tone built for articulating the meat ‘n’ potatoes of primitive thrash and blackened grindcore riffs is forever frustrated in its momentum by the unpredictable rhythmic foundation. This forces it into articulating more non-linear, esoteric riff forms arising from a place of simplicity. Guttural, processed vocals flow across the music in rich textural waves, functioning more like supplementary ambience than anything approaching a lead instrument.

As with previous efforts, what distinguishes Moonchapel from garden variety war metal or the countless smaller acts fashioned in the Teitanblood mould, is a clear thematic intent articulated within each piece. For all its gestures toward primitivism and randomness inherent to the off kilter delivery, there is an emergent throughline that becomes clear as each track develops. The atonality of the rhythm guitar is supplemented by dark melodic currents here presented as more horrific and malevolent when compared to the sweeping romanticism of European black metal. A world of contrasts arises from this place of severe and apparently lawless austerity.

Ironically, despite the sparsity of its rudiments, it takes a number of listens to get one’s ear into the experience and appreciate the more refined aspects of this album, a fact consistent across Moonchapel’s fast growing discography. An ear accustomed to the precision of modern extreme metal may find the unrefined delivery somewhat jarring. Often the events appear to be occurring almost by accident. But as the flow and pacing of the music beds in, a host of themes, refrains, and narrative threads gradually present themselves, as if they are having to fight tooth and nail to break through the hazy surface of noise and make their presence known. For this reason, Moonchapel’s appeal may well be niche, limited to those few fans remaining with a passion for early USBM. But given the number of aesthetically comparable “black/death metal” albums swirling around in the contemporary aether, one hopes that there is an audience waiting in the wings for this artist if it can reach enough ears willing to give it the time.