Covered in the Priests Black Shit

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7.0

• Bands:
  CH'AHOM
• Duration: 00:14:59
• Available from: 11/09/2025

With a title that already seems like a manifesto of intent, “Covered in the Priests Black Shit” marks the return of the German Ch'ahom to a rougher, more direct and immediately hostile territory. If the debut “Knots of Abhorrence” aimed at an almost progressive aesthetic – long songs, sprawling structures, an exploratory attitude which, without betraying the extreme matrix, allowed a taste for expansion and the unexpected to emerge – this new EP almost completely overturns the perspective. Barely fifteen minutes in which the quartet reduces the distance between idea and impact, giving up more airy drifts in favor of an urgency that flows into the most abrasive war metal.

It is a work that, from the first notes, immediately makes its intentions clear: no atmospheric wanderings, no elaborate constructions, just a series of frontal attacks supported by compulsive riffs and drumming. The sound system is deliberately caustic, compressed just enough to bring out the aggression without falling into an indistinct mush. Ch'ahom choose an intelligent middle ground: they sound ferocious, but they don't completely sacrifice the readability of the arrangements. This can be felt above all in the continuous tempo changes, well-matched but never cloying, which give the EP a more varied internal dynamic than its essential and aggressive appearance would suggest.

The Mesoamerican concept that already permeates the band's imagination remains, at least on the surface: titles like “Tlacaxipehualiztli” and “Raid of the Tzizimime” recall bloody rituals, but these are references that live almost exclusively in words, rather than in music. In fact, there is no particular timbral or rhythmic research that explicitly recalls that cultural universe; no indigenous percussion, no evocative patterns, no attempt to merge different musical traditions. In this specific circumstance, the Ch'ahom do not seem to want to 'describe' anything: they use those images as a mental context, a symbolic horizon within which to set their destructive charge. The music, in this case, is pure friction, pure assault. And precisely this expressive nakedness is part of the charm of the EP: one perceives a self-confident band, which this time does not need to stratify or build superstructures to demonstrate compositional maturity. Even when short, more atmospheric passages emerge – small environmental interstices that act as a breather before the umpteenth thrust – they serve more as a functional counterpart than as an attempt to expand the language. What matters here are the riffs: pounding, supported by a blasphemous groove that gives no respite. And they work. They work because they are chiseled with a naturalness that the band seems to master effortlessly.

The overall brevity greatly benefits the overall impact: in a quarter of an hour, the EP maintains a constant tension without fragility or moments of tiredness, and above all without exceeding in self-indulgence. It is a work that does not pretend to redefine anything, nor to add a particularly innovative piece to this particular strand of extreme metal. But it delivers exactly what it promises: a concentration of causticity executed with skill and restraint, a compact expression of ritual fury devoid of superfluous filters. It is not a particularly characteristic work, nor does it want to be. But the riffs are there, and they're good. For this time, that's enough and moving forward.