Like any good hardcore punk album, Gehenna's 2000 album Negotium Perambulans In Tenebris is a short, compact affair, encapsulating all of it's rage and disgust and seething violence in twenty short minutes. Its this stripped-down, forceful delivery that is part of what makes the southern California band sound so fuckin' viscous on this, their first album (their previous full-length release The War Of The Sons Of Light And The Suns Of Darkness was more of a collection of demo and 7" tracks). There are a thousand bands now trying to combine the monochrome violence of classic black metal with the Spartan power of hardcore nowadays, but back when Gehenna were doing it, they were in a field of their own. While they tended to be lumped in with the "Holy Terror" crowd in the 90s alongside bands like Integrity, Ringworm, Catharsis and Starkweather, Gehenna were a much more raw and savage outfit that effectively fused the most punishing aspects of hardcore and powerviolence with evil, blackened metal, and this stuff hasn't lost an ounce of its rabid aggression or intensity in the decade since. Drawing from the chaotic, negative HC of bands like Void, Negative Approach and Infest and the most sadistic proponents of European black-thrash, Gehenna injected this sound with their own unique misanthropic worldview and penchant for unpredictable violence to create something truly fearsome on Negotium, blasting through each ninety-second song with murderous intent, the songs blasted out in jarring, halting chunks of super-fast hardcore and near-grind-level blasting, singer Mike Cheese belting out his hateful, abject lyrics in a feral, raspy shriek on songs like "Baptized In Fallout" and "Ours To Devour", the band slipping into brief passages of crushing Hellhammer-esque deathsludge and putrescent ambience among the relentless thrashing. Fucking ferocious.

Originally released on the now-defunct Crawlspace Records, Negotium Perambulans In Tenebris has been reissued on Cd (by Magic Bullet) and limited-edtion colored vinyl (by A389 Recordings), both editions in gatefold packaging, with each version featuring a different cover song at the end of the album; the Cd has a killer rendition of GG Allin's "Bite It You Scum", while the Lp features a blitzkrieg version of D.R.I.'s "Yes Ma'am".

Bow before the Seven Crowns.