This is the second album from Chilean one-man black metal band Winds of Tragedy.
Hating Life is a 35-minute journey into misery and despair. This is expressed via a harrowing and scathing form of post-black metal, one which is made up of the atmospheric and depressive styles, along with a death metal edge, (particularly in the vocals, which are dark, deep, and brutal).
The music is forceful and emotive. It takes strength from the underlying feelings of isolation, loss, and hopelessness that infest the material to deliver a raging tempest of blackened aggression. This is melancholy given violent form.
The rhythm guitars are heavier than you’d usually find on a pure black metal record, and this only adds to their power. The riffs and rhythms are punishing and leave deep scars, while the melodic highlights are used to really drive home the negative feelings that are causing the music to be so aggressive and lethal.
It’s not all furious intensity on Hating Life, although that is a large part of the album. Moments of introspection appear too, reminding the listener of all that’s sorrowful and dreadful in the world, before they’re engulfed in a storm of blackened brutality and abrasive darkness once more.
The artist behind Winds of Tragedy has produced a merciless album that cares not for your protestations of innocence. Filled to the brim with mournful suffering, Hating Life has reached breaking point and is lashing out with extreme violence at anyone or anything in its way. If this sounds like your kind of thing, then make sure you prepare yourself for its onslaught.
Highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 