Well, Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here isn�t actually a pure and typical black metal record because it has many influences, like grindcore, death metal and progressive elements. All packed in a modern wrapping. Anaal Nathrakh�s style is pretty close to that of Akercocke, is it a coincidence that both bands are from England? Just as Akercocke Anaal Nathrakh regularly likes to entry some clean vocals, but Anaal Nathrakh never combines it with acoustic guitars. Overall you can say that Anaal Nathrakh plays more overwhelming black metal, like in the song �Screaming of the Unborn�. It�s an amazing track that keeps on blasting while keeping your full attention.

 

Well, enough about the Akercocke comparisons. About the vocals then, because those are very varied. Roughly there are three kinds of vocals. First is the dominant black metal screams which sound so evil that if Jesus heard them at birth he would have immediately crawled back in the womb, to never show his little magic tricks on this godforsaken planet. The second is the death metal grunt, which is very much like Jan Chris de Koeyer of Gorefest. The last kind is the clean vocals, which will not work for everybody, because it often sounds as if a heroic story is read. But overall all these different vocals really contribute to the varied sound of Anaal Nathrakh.

 

I can be pretty clear on this, if you like black metal which goes further than the standard black metal riffs and screams, you really got to buy this record. Basically that�s every Akercocke fan. Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here is one the most interesting and varied black metal records of the year.