I’d imagine your opinion on whether this divisive record is laughable nonsense or as disturbing an insight into morbidity and derangement as can be envisioned by music depends on your reaction to the moment one minutes and forty-seven seconds into Death-Pierce Me, when Nattram’s vocals make their first appearance. Every time, as it draws nearer, I have to brace myself. Enjoyment of the album must surely depend on how the listener interprets them, because Nattram defines the band like few other extreme metal vocalists ever really do. He positively shrieks in a girlish falsetto that is so shrill as to be painful to the ears. At other times he whimpers incomprehensibly to himself, jabbering about… something… in tracks such as Sterile Nails and Thunderbowels.

So he entirely overshadows what is actually a great set of powerfully melodic depressive black metal compositions with his lunacy. Like compatriots Shining, Silencer shift between unnerving, atmospheric downtimes of piano or acoustic interludes underpinning mental-patient ranting, and rich tremolo blasting passages soaked in poignant harmonies. The latter can be truly thunderous, and the former immensely effective. The mesmerising lead loops that circle over I Shall Lead, You Shall Follow are like searchlights surveying a bloody battlefield. The shifting walls of sound on Taklamakan are gargantuan, and the ominous industrial noise ambience to which they give way complements them perfectly, like a funeral procession through the set of Eraserhead. It’s in the latter atmosphere of oppressive noise and chaos that surfaces throughout Death- Pierce Me that Nattram shines. It’s in the more frequent black metal sections that his delivery undermines the band and threatens to drag it into the void of the simply ridiculous. The Slow Kill in the Cold has a menacing, faded-out feel whose ice-cold grimness is probably not best helped by the hysterical elderly woman that appears to have found her way into the recording studio.

Of course, for me it is bizarre and a distraction, for others it may be the perfect match for music so purposefully evocative of insanity. I’d imagine that if you fit into the latter category, this album must be truly wonderful. As hinted at above, instrumentally it is magnificent black metal; both horrifying and captivating, and a vocalist that can generate something so utterly batshit can be gold dust. So like I said at the start, a lot rests on that.

And so, Death- Pierce Me is a difficult album to judge. A true cult release, to be scorned by most and loved by a few. But, however raucously you may laugh at it, I defy you not to be at least secretly impressed by the magnitude of its raging black metal soul.