��� Starting with that demo reissue that came out on Antichrist Kramer's Deathangle Absolution last year, I've become a huge fan of this Swiss band, who have fast become one of my favorite newer black metal outfits. Those initial tape releases showcased a totally fuzz-damaged, infectious take on ultra-raw black metal, delivering a batch of songs that were as catchy and hummable as they were raucous and thrashing, their jangling guitar hooks and weirdly croaked vocals shrouded in a magnificently mangy recording that sounded like that stuff had been recorded on some ancient, poltergeist-possessed Tascam tape deck. I had compared that stuff to a rather weird but totally contagious mutant hybrid of Homestead Records-era Dinosaur Jr. and Darkthrone at their absolute rawest and ugliest, the whole experience enhanced further by the band's apocalyptic lyrics and their Trapper Keeper-style metal artwork. I couldn't get enough of that stuff (those tapes have been played almost to the point of disintegration here in the C-Blast HQ), and I've been yearning for more Ghost Kommando ever since.

��� Now, they've finally resurfaced with the new twenty-five minute mini-album Abraxas Rising, and it's fucking killer. Minus the minute-long intro and outro tracks that set the mood with various vintage horror-flick effluvium, this disc cranks out five new songs from Ghost Kommando, in that gloriously roughshod style that still sounds totally unique. I've seen some people reference Joy Division when discussing the Kommando's sound before, but that's mostly due to the singer's deep, mournful baritone singing; the music itself is still that odd mixture of primitive thrashing black metal and fuzz-drenched melody

that continues to feel like it was drawn from the veins of classic late 80s American post-punk a la early Dinosaur Jr and Husker Du. Probably looks like a suspect mix of sounds when you're reading this, but the end result that Ghost Kommando belt out is furious and filthy and utterly infectious.

��� Abraxas is made up of equal amounts of slower, brooding tracks like "Seven Sermons To The Dead" that usually end up erupting into scraggly blackened buzz and ferocious blastbeats with a raspier, more sinister vocal delivery, and the faster fury of songs like "Intolerance", "Spectre (Conquest)" and "Vultures" that are all rampaging double bass drumming and jangling major chords, as well as the Motorhead-gone-pop thunder of "Raptor". As catchy as all of this gets, though, these songs are definitely quite ominous in mood, with the occasional trace of something folkier going on with some of Karnov's stirring, triumphant guitar melodies. Their production hasn't gotten any more polished than the last time, the whole disc hurtling through a ramshackle blackened blast with little regard for studio polish or even clean editing, songs sometimes suddenly dispersing into a weird spoken word outro, or abruptly skidding to a halt. Man, do I love this stuff. As with previous releases, this features more of singer Void's killer crude phantasmal illustrations as well.