A ninth abominant form arisen under clawed commandeer of the chaotic forces of nature, He who must destroy is once again summoned to obliterate all idolatrous hordes through trampled-out, blood drenched genocidal cull. The chosen vessel for annihilation is none other than Seattle, Washington-area death metal quartet DRAWN AND QUARTERED who crush and twist all skulls under boot via this wrathfully clobbered-out ninth full-length album. The devotee can approach ‘Lord of Two Horns‘ with blind confidence and find their well-proven blasphemic accost intact, fuming here with infernal brutality pouring from every piece as the band’s signature and high standards are upheld. For the uninitiated the band’s 90’s underground sourced and USDM informed vision remains approachable from all angles as they add yet another uncompromised and inspired release to an already indomitable discography.

One of the most consistent fixtures of Pacific Northwest death metal since the mid-90’s Drawn and Quartered formed most officially around 1996 as an offshoot of guitarist/songwriter K.S. Kuciemba‘s Plague Bearer which’d been founded several years before but has since become its own a separate project. Their style has always been focused on the pillars of Morbid Angel, Immolation and Incantation via their ~pre-1994 states though you’ll find their drummers various styles have carried over various influences, such as the Cannibal Corpse heavy live-recorded debut LP (‘To Kill Is Human‘, 1999) which featured Infester‘s original drummer. My favorite albums from the band (re: ‘Extermination Revelry‘, 2003) tend to incorporate the doomed slugging of ‘Onward to Golgotha‘ with a slightly more technical and always militant brutality, obsessively carved and heavily rhythmic stuff that resorts to Vigna-demented harmony for their own unique phrasing. The band took no issue with sounding like their core influences on earlier releases and if we’re being completely honest they’ve upheld that standard and intensity better than most of those idols while reinforcing a signature of their own over the years.

Drawn and Quartered have always been a favorite conduit for what I consider canonical USDM in the sense that their style is “traditional” in some sense but also an exaggeration of what’d come before, not just an acceleration of pace but a song-oriented band capable of creating wrathful, obscenely atmospheric work sidled next to abhorrent brutality. This has been the major focus of their sound beyond beyond their impressive five album streak within their first decade or so, and it’d be hard to select a peak of this ideal between 2012 and now… though I’d given high praise to ‘Congregation Pestilence‘ (2021) in review eventually placing it at #23 on my Top 75 Albums of the Year with appreciation for its wield of gloom-stricken yet irreverent death metal sounds. With this in mind alongside the bias of twenty plus years of fandom considered the only potential unknown for this new album was what new second chair guitarist Brandon Corsair (Dragkhar, Nameless Grave Records) might bring to this well-established sound.

Of course their style finds direct continuation here with strong focus on dissonant and dissolving guitar harmonies which linger in their thread for the sake of ear-straining tension, though the first observation to make up front is the smoking pace deployed from the get-go. Production values likewise sustain here on ‘Lord of Two Horns‘ with Loïc F. (Autokrator, Krucyator Productions) handling the main render though the drums are set aback in the mix slightly while the vocals appear equally prominent as the lead guitar voicing. When the kit is given room to stand on its own, such as the fading final hits of “Grimoire of Blood”, they don’t fully land as hard as some of Drawn and Quartered‘s harder-edged earlier records but I’d say this is still one of the more outright brutal records from the band overall without negating the intricately spun atmosphere also found on ‘Congregation Pestilence‘. The mid-album estrangement offered by “Three Rivers of Poison (Blasphemous Persecution)” is the ideal ratio of these suggested attributes where brutality and the use of unusual chord voicing makes for a surreal yet thrilling menace.

Of course we build to that point via destructive, suffocating mayhem kicked off by opener “Black Castle Butcher” which carries in some of the grinding interruptus of their earlier records and hammers through odd-angled runs throughout. The use of leads hadn’t always been an expected spectacle from Drawn and Quartered so much as riff-stoked embellishment but since the late 2000’s it has been an additional strength to their work and this album is no exception, though they keep it relatively simple to start while allowing their use of long-handed pinch harmonic weaving riffs to feature. The title track (“Lord of Two Horns”) otherwise stands out on Side A as they pull in a very different, kinda surprisingly clean set of guitar solos which crop up throughout the song providing one of very few breaks in the action within the span of the first five or so songs. Their gig has always been relentless and all the more immersive for it but ‘Lord of Two Horns‘ is a real head-down grinding beast to start.

Though the rallying is never fully over within Drawn and Quartered‘s surrealistic hellscape the final three songs rip through more of a gamut in terms of their pacing, slowing to a grotesque discordant plod on “Grimoire of Blood” and hailing down morbid doom with standout piece “The Devil’s Work is Never Done”, one of my favorites on the record. The gutturally echoing vocals, filthier-than-thou bass guitar tone, and lumbering trod which characterize latter resembles some the band’s best traits for my own taste while still leaving some room for those fairly simple riff progressions to breathe and distort. While the full listen here is characteristically sub-40 minutes in length the outright density of riffcraft and blasted-out torment here should be the right stuff for folks seeking the most pure essence of death metal’s volatile, dread-fueled mentality.

Any fan of pure death metal could certainly hang with this record though I think it’ll be folks who have followed Drawn and Quartered over the years that’ll best appreciate the scope and nuanced intensity that ‘Lord of Two Horns‘ brings. They’ve brought in artwork from Gabriel Byrne once more for the cover, reviving his equally surreal depiction of hellish cull as part of their signature aesthetic, this time with a streak of dead souls in the artwork which (to me) resembles a sort of ‘Blessed are the Sick‘-esque impact. While we don’t get the full-on complexity and atmosphere of the two records prior the trade for a harder hit, more immediate tirade is beyond worthy and the performances here never lurch or a slouch on the bash through. These folks are still among the best active (and uncompromised) death metal bands today and this latest record serves as proof, a fine addition to their still all-killer no bullshit discography. A very high recommendation.

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