Archiving Father Befouled's first European show, Anointed in Darkness: Live In Europe, serves a singular historical purpose and is how I perceive the album first and foremost. While from an artistic perspective the recording does a good job presenting the atmosphere which Father Befouled have captured on their albums, the willingness of the band to overlook certain aspects seems to me that the band has an emotional connection to the circumstances of the captured milestone which is greater than their concern for the quality of the recording itself. I can only theorize, however I expect that a slightly better performance and recording taken from the band's third or fourth show, for example, would have as much significance to a fan as the first show from this tour. Ultimately though, there is nonetheless a special semblance carried through Anointed.., perhaps just short of imperceptible, which renders minor performance mistakes and production miscues moot. If nothing else, we can revel side-by-side with Father Befouled as they offer their subterranean craft to an audience for the first time on this virgin terra. Krucyator Productions is responsible for the release and everything appears as professional as can be expected from the French label.
Justin Stubbs, the main force behind Father Befouled, has said before in interviews that his main goal is to create "dirty, nasty, dissonant, atonal, ugly shit"*. Most of these terms apply to this recording and so, at least from the creator's vantage point, Anointed... is an objective success. Personally, I don't hear a huge amount of atonality in Father Befouled, nor much dissonance. The riffs are largely chromatic, but that alone doesn't equal the discomfort which atonality manifests in say, a song like "Idol Defamation," which does carry many clearly atonal moments. Father Befouled's death metal sculptures are those of chiselled saints missing limbs and upturned crosses melting into pools of hellish fire, equal parts catacombs and coffins, and creeping paranoia. Dirty, nasty, and ugly but not so much the industrialized and mechanical incapability for melody which one finds prevalent in, particularly atonal and dissonant metal. Clearly, there are no major scales, no walking bass lines, no moments for dancing; there is only a subterranean swelling of blood, bile, and blasphemy. By church standards, this is a record which would be burnt, crushed, destroyed, and it's owner sent to reformation camps and, therefore, has a rightful place in death metal halls alongside major influences like Incantation and Immolation.
From the initial seconds of guitar feedback, it's clear that the platter we are being served hasn't exactly been sanitized. After the time-honored tradition of counting off with quarter notes on the snare, death metal is thrust into our yearning minds in the form of "Sacrilegious Defilement". The most immediate thought for the listener should be "why is Rhys Spencer's bass the only thing I can hear?" It's undeniable that his low end is overwhelming. This is the case in many locations throughout the opening song, as well as through the rest of the album. This is likely a technical miscue having to do with the way in which the live audio was mixed on the soundboard in a live setting. Live sound is rarely mixed in a similar manner to studio, especially in regards to bass. The frequencies at which bass is transmitted are longer and appear to the ear less audible than the higher frequency guitar tones in a clear-sight room so bass is pushed louder so the audience can 'feel' the rumbling in their gut. The result of this mixing is that the original soundboard source material naturally is bass heavy. It's also why when you walk outside of a venue, you can often hear tons of bass and nothing else - longer frequency waves pass through material with less volume reduction than tighter guitar frequencies. It's essential in a live setting to mix this way but is recreated poorly on record. Texturally, there isn't much to warrant such a loud bass and the muted tone is too clean for my tastes - and for the sound of the band. This is the releases largest singular flaw, yet, alternatively, this loud bass is something which would never be emphasized in a studio album to this degree and gives Anointed... an elementalism, a hear-and-now quality, which is transportive, genuine, and definitively 'live'.
Underneath Rhys' thunderous bass Amos Rifkin completes the rhythmic responsibilities capably. Derick Goulding and Stubbs add the frosting to this sulfurous cake. Riffs often are phantoms of tremolo picking and guitar squeals with occasional terse doom moments. Where solos or lead moments do appear, the subtle glimpses of sad melodies add a noticeable dimension. It's one of the reasons why "Ungodly Rest" is the best track in my opinion here, even if there are a few audible performance flaws and a full minute of the solo section has been culled in their live set. The song has a couple big moments to remember: the slow undulating opening riff descending one and a half steps to a contrasting low 'B' which acts as a melodic glue for the track and the excellent, yet shortened, doom/death solo section. For me, not knowing a large portion of Father Befouled's discography for this release, it was the quickest song to take notice of. The second track that next really captured my attention was "Holy Rotten Blood," and "Idol Defamation" third due to that atonality. In some ways it reminded me of early At The Gates melodically. The set has a good mix of speeds with plenty of slow, mid, and fast paced songs to fend off boredom or monotony which speaks to Father Befouled's songwriting.
Anointed in Darkness does exactly what the band wants it to do: capture a moment in time, their first European show, and allow others to share in that experience. It presents the band as they genuinely are: a foot soldier in the American old school death metal army, willing to follow the orders of their superiors and get the job done. It fits the mentality of a workhorse band and Stubbs' humble production minded goals. Much of the physical release is really well done also. The packaging and layout, also from Stubbs who is a graphic designer by trade, is kept simple but refined with an eight page layout featuring black and red tour photos and live shots. Having said that packaging is "something he always looks for in releases+" while simultaneously acknowledging that he "doesn't overthink things... it is me kind of going 'that's good enough'*", I can see his passion represented by the former comment as well as his desire to get things done by the latter. The layout - which could have been much more lazily assembled - is stitched together with a natural feel for acceptable photo positioning, booklet layout, and the added insert explanation as to why this release is important to the Father Befouled crew. Anointed In Darkness, even though the sound is not the best, does make me want to pick up a copy of Desolate Gods after hearing the impressive "Ungodly Rest." The front cover photo from Malia Rifkin (I'm assuming drummer Amos' significant other) captures the band in a moment of subdued grandeur, entranced in blasphemy beneath an inverted crucified Christ, simple spotlights raining a pure white light onto those who on April 30th, 2019 offered their own Word to a following of willing supplicants.
* https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/harvester-publishing/execution-podcast/e/episode-002-justin-stubbs-of-father-befouled-encoffination-49698386
+ http://putrefactiveeffectzine.blogspot.com/2010/04/father-befouled-interview-2009.html
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