TRANSHUNTER – s/t

I haven’t been that excited about a Balkan band for quite some time! TRANSHUNTER come from Skopje―Macedonia’s capital―and they play their own brew of weird and minimalist, dark and unsettling music. We had them play live here in Sofia recently, while on tour with noise grind legends Sete Star Sept from Japan.

Their self-titled album is out since 2017, and was recorded with four people on board. Right now TRANSHUNTER operate as a two-piece, which is always fresh and cool thing to see live.

Gloomy synth intro makes entry for dark and raw aesthetic, minimalist arrangements, basic, hard-hitting drums and evil, grinding bass. Rather short and straight-to-the-point tracks, the longest being around six sick minutes. This music isn’t something that falls easily into the traps of genre definitions.

These are 13 tracks that dwell between doom, industrial, black metal, hardcore punk and tons of healthy experimentalism, creating bleak atmosphere and sending shivers down the spine. I can’t help but think about Bathory while listening to “Sovereignty Of Hell,” and “A Need To Be Tamed” definitely sends me straight into COIL territory.

“Beyond Symbolic Reality” exploits weird Christian-orthodox-like vocals over heavily distorted drone doom instrumental. While this is most certainly a thing in recent doom records (thanks to OM, maybe?!), it’s rare that it sounds proper and not hilarious, so they nailed it this time!

Often monotonous, but never boring―TRANSHUNTER’s compositions keep you alert for the whole duration of the album. I can’t stress enough how much I enjoy an album with organic feel to the recording. It certainly doesn’t sound perfect or polished, drums and bass can sound off at time, but the concept and consistency of sound and effects makes up for it, and honestly―I can’t imagine this record any other way.

Definitely one of the best releases I’ve heard in the past year! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!