Waxen’s Weihung Auf Satan: U Jam?

What do you learn from the realization that you’ve ceased all thought for an entire first listen to an album? Like, way back when the album’s first notes were sounding, you got the idea to change into shorts but 40 minutes later, you’re in the same hot trousers and sweaty as a Texan. You had planned, also, to grab a delicious sparkling water but it never happened; the album just ended and you’re still parched. It’s because your brain stopped processing all data unrelated to this special album. You’re stunned.

This is the new album by Waxen, titled Weihung Auf Satan. Even without its shocks (more later), Weihung steps over a bunch of your favorite 2016 albums to the very front of your attention. It rages, and seems super joyous about riffs of ’90s death metal and the sonics of scum black metal. Waxen nails both, yet these are the album’s third and fourth awesomest parts.

The first shock arrives via its vocals, which are the scarier cousin of Skrew and Minus; think “harsh scraping.” It’s chaos. And while you’re freaking out about them during the first verses of opening jam “Of Black Rain And Ecstasy,” suddenly it hits you — wait, hold the fucking phone, right before the vocals came in… was there a harmony guitar solo?

Yes, there was. That was just the tip. Waxen mainman Toby Knapp is a guitar virtuoso and shreds all over this sternly reverent deathy black metal album. In fact, Knapp is responsible for everything, those riffs and unambiguously hateful vocals, the virtuosity and expert songwriting. Weihung is one of those “everything” albums, one as exciting as it is excellent, an awesome idea that should’ve happened sooner, a clinic in momentum. Shocking. Crank it up!!!!

Waxen’s Weihung Auf Satan came out last Friday via Moribund. Get it here and here.