The seventh studio long player from Norway's leading purveyors of underground avant-garde black metal, experimental rock, post-punk, and doom/sludge/industrial metal, Gospel effortlessly adds post-punk, no wave, and goth-pop to the band's seemingly fathomless sonic arsenal. It's also the first full-length
Årabrot outing to appear in the wake of show runner Kjetil Nernes' recovery from throat cancer, and like 2014's Modi EP, which Nernes recorded -- against his doctor's orders -- shortly after his treatment -- it's a study in defiance. Helped along by
Killing Joke's Ted Parsons,
Andrew Liles (
Current 93) and
Stephen O'Malley (
Sunn O)))) --
Kvelertak frontman Erlend Hjelvik makes an appearance as well -- Nernes flips the switch on the disease that nearly killed him and never lets up. Cerebral, militaristic, and wildly inventive, Gospel is
Årabrot's least out and out metal offering to date, but standout cuts like the recalcitrant title track, the epic "Faustus," and the brooding "Tall Man," bristle with the zeal of a recently escaped inmate. ~ James Christopher Monger