� I've been under the sway of this strange, experimental black metal-ish duo since their The Leprosy Of Unreality 12", which introduced us to the Indiana-based band's weirdly ritualistic, intensely phantasmagoric blastprog a couple of years ago. Their previous efforts revealed a strange mixture of abstract, noisy doom and minimalist, barbaric black metal that seemed to combine the trancelike qualities of Von with a more psychedelic, almost krautrock-informed approach to rhythm and repetition. On Black Blood, though, Charnel House have moved even further out from the realm of black metal into something even more outre, a reckless improvisational streak appearing in the wild outbursts of chaotic drumming, and most interestingly, an unearthly vocal performance from singer Hellfire that brings a newfound feeling of being trapped between worlds while listening to their recordings, her wraithlike moan much more prominent in the mix compared to past releases, her wail heavily layered and processed, cloaked in heavy reverb and echo but spreading out with the surreal, dreamlike lyrics like a black fog all across the recording.

� The opening song "Deathliness" comes in on a cloud of blackened amp-drone and sparse, almost martial snare drums, as Hellfire's delirious, witch-like coo drifts overhead, the sound super creepy and hypnotic. Lashes of searing distorted guitar and tangles of percussive chaos briefly appear against the midnight thrum of the band's blown-out trance-rock, suddenly lurching into barbaric blastbeat passages, the drumming loose and propulsive, sometimes settling into a strange, almost krautrock-like rhythmic loop. Elsewhere, the band weaves together murky recordings of traditional Native American song and blaring blackened noise, erupting into odd blastbeat-driven rhythmic workouts swirling with those ghostly, monotonous vocals, then breaking down into sparse abstract doom, the rumbling low-end heaviness giving way to blurts of discordant tuneless guitar. The riffs are mostly simple and atonal, jagged and ugly chunks of distorted crunch that lock into loopy circular riffs around those relentless pounding drums. The songs suddenly stop and start back up again unexpectedly, the wailing ethereal vocals continuing to drift over top even when the music abruptly lurches to a halt and we're left with nothing but some ghostly, minimal hum hovering in the blackness. The first song on the B-side "When You Become" expands the sound a little further, adding bits of eerie piano and murky samples to the rumbling, mesmeric blast, the drums slipping into another one of their extended rhythmic loops, losing himself in the repetitive locked-groove blast for a bit, before shifting into even more violent tempos. There are bits of creepy, detuned minor key guitar that show up on "Sewn Shut", and later on, ashes of chiming tones bookend passages of lurching, noisy doom-dirge, a kind of fucked-up blackened noise rock that surfaces towards the end of the record.

� There's a strange, decrepit feel to Charnel House's music; at times, this seems to tap into a similar charred blackened hypno-groove as France's Aluk Todolo, but there's a uniquely cracked, otherworldly feel that makes this really unique. Released in a limited hand-numbered edition of two hundred copies, Black Blood comes in a striking black and white silk-screened sleeve, and includes a code for a digital copy of the album.