Cryfemal are a Spanish black metal band and this is their ninth album.
We’re going back to 2023 for this one. Why? Well, simply because while I’ve been aware of Cryfemal for some time, I’ve never heard them, so when I recently received the promo for this, I really wanted to check it out. So I did, and it made a big impression.
Oh crap, I’m not sure what I was expecting from Cryfemal, but it wasn’t this. La Gran Victoria del Mal is a 30-minute all-out attack of viciousness and fury. Possibly as the band are on their ninth album I was assuming it would be something more by-the-numbers and tired-sounding? That’s not what this is at all; La Gran Victoria del Mal sounds pissed off, vibrantly fierce, and Hellishly aggressive.
Cryfemal’s music is brutal and harsh, its misanthropic assault aimed at destroying the light and heralding in the darkness. The album’s style is firmly rooted in the 90s, but mixed with elements of death metal and bestial war metal. The execution is very contemporary – the guitars are notable in particular, carrying a modern essence to them that essentially sounds to my ears as if the band have tamed an unknowable abyss and compressed it into distorted riffs that are warping and distorting reality with their mere vitriolic presence. Think Anaal Nathrakh in some respects.
I have no idea, (yet), whether La Gran Victoria del Mal is representative of Cryfemal’s discography or is more of an outlier. All I know is that it’s the sort or adrenaline-soaked hyper-aggressive black metal best that’s monstrously good. This is really nasty, hostile stuff, and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you want your flesh torn asunder by a storm of blackened teeth and claws.
Wonderbox Metal 