Band:	Heresiarch
Album:	Edifice
Style:	Black metal, Death metal
Release date:	April 12, 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. Forged Doctrine
02. Manifest Odium
03. Noose Above The Abyss
04. Gloryless Execution
05. Tides Of Regression
06. A World Lit Only By Fire
07. Swarming Blight
08. Mystic And Chaos
09. Hubris And Decline
10. Militate Pyrrhic Collapse

Heresiarch (/hɛˈriːzɪɑːk/): the founder of a heresy or the leader of a heretical sect. Also the name of a some sick ass blackened death metal band.

I first encountered the name "Heresiarch" when checking the lineup connections of another band I reviewed, Verberis. When you notice that the vocalist of a band you already like is in another seemingly cool band that's also due to drop a new album a couple of weeks later, obviously that's bound to intrigue me. The rest of the lineup doesn't seem to have that many relevant connections (unless you count some ex-members that were also in Diocletian), but so far I have yet to find a New Zealand death metal band that disappoints me. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Heresiarch doesn't disappoint me.

First of all look at how suggestive and immersive that Stefan Todorović crafted album art is. Now also check the album art for their only other full length, Death Ordinance (I even used that new tag method just so you can easily take a look at it), and tell me that isn't war metal worthy. Now, Heresiarch aren't war metal, thought you can definitely find something vicious and aggressive enough in their sound that does betray some war metal influence, and instead that oppressive feeling does come a bit more from injecting black and doom metal into the mix to create something crushing and that takes the admittedly more war metal influenced Death Ordinance and adds a lot more refinement to it.

I already mentioned the black and doom injections, the black one might make more sense when considering that the vocalist also performs in a more black-tinged band, the aforementioned one, though it's often not just his vocals that tinge the sound towards blackened death, with plenty of riffing and blast beats that match. The atmospheric focus and occasional slower tempos are where the almost caverncore doom death sounds feel in their element. What Edifice does best is balance out that sense of refined atmosphere and more intricate songwriting with the straight-forward crushing heaviness of a war metal infused blackened death, something that knows when to unleash chaos and when to restrain it.

Edifice might be more pummeling than filthy, more commanding than reckless, but it's a bloody affair nonetheless, the "Geneva convention more like Geneva suggestion" kind.