Exclusive Track Premiere: Paganizer’s “Fare Thee Well (Burn In Hell)”
Rogga!
On November 1, 2024, Paganizer will release their 13th LP Flesh Requiem, continuing their fruitful partnership with Transcending Obscurity that began with the On the Outskirts of Hades EP in 2016. It’s often difficult, I think, to say anything novel about living institutions, and, to be sure, both Paganizer and Rogga Johansson are just that. Fortunately, Flesh Requiem is such a strong album that one doesn’t need novelty to offer it accolades.
Album opener “Life of Decay” and titular lead single “Flesh Requiem” are tone-setters in the best way. Paganizer gallop out the gate with a macabre gallantry, stringing together pitch-perfect and fresh blitzes of HM-2 riffing and high-drama guitar harmonies and flourishing melodic passages. “Life of Decay” is a total onslaught, while “Flesh Requiem” swings between classic d-beat Swedeath and the sort of melodic death/doom that has emerged as a hallmark of the band on recent albums. While the band would never deign to drag you into the murky depths of doom, you can certainly hear that clarion call of newer acts a la Fires in the Distance in such moments. And, to be sure, the almost ecstatic “World Scythe” is hearkening back to the halcyon days of In Flames and At the Gates as well as Grave and Entombed, with a blend of axe-swinging and “soul-tearing melodies” pulled “out of thin air.” It would be all so much nostalgia and sweet reverie if it didn’t, somehow after all these decades and albums, still stink of a rotting freshness that has become Paganizer’s hallmark blend of splintering bones while touching your innermost feelings. “Necromonolithic” is our dreariest and most mournful single, as blazing passages can’t rescue us from the pits of wailing despair at the heart of the song.
Today, we’re stoked to bring you “Fare Thee Well (Burn In Hell),” the 5th and final single from Flesh Requiem. Skinsman Matthias Fiebig is appropriately hellbent behind the drumkit, unleashing a torrent of pinpoint precision decisions that keep the track’s anchoring riffs fresh as they whip around the listener in a whirlwind of fiery fury. Less melodic than the other available singles, “Fare Thee Well” is as catchy a song on the entirety of the album, with that slow double-bass patterned refrain undergirding Rogga’s easily remembered admonition. Sitting right between “World Scythe” and “Necromonolithic,” “Fare Thee Well” has no time for methodical complexity; rather, it’s entirely focused on banishing you—yes, you!—to the very hellish bowels up from whence it came. It’s nothing but sheer, unadorned Swedish death metal, ripping and buzzsawing its way into your necrotized brainpan.
About “Fare Thee Well,” the band has this to say:
It’s an anthem for the ones you wanna send straight to Hell.
This scorcher has both ugliness and catchiness and is heavy enough.
A perfect example of the Paganizer way of death metal. Raw and simple but headbanging friendly.
Again, I don’t even know why I’m here if the band is going to say it better than I can! Anthemic, scorching, ugly, catchy, heavy, and angry as hell. It does what it says on the tin, folks! So hit play below and get those pre-orders lined up.
Flesh Requiem is out November 1
on Transcending Obscurity Records.
There’s a veritable goldmine of sick merch
featuring that oh-so-sweet Lewandowski artwork.
Go spend all your money!
