Imha Tarikat are primed to escape the underground
THE GERMAN BLACK metal scene is in perennial rude health and produces large quantities of great music every year. Thus far, however, it has yet to produce a band to truly transcend the underground and strike through to a broader metal consciousness. Purveyors of a pitch-black and barbarous strain of extremity, Imha Tarikat have steadily evolved into Germany’s most likely. The band’s first two albums – 2019’s Kara Ihlas and the following year’s Sternenberster – detonated with irrefutable impact. Sonically superior and even more explosive than its predecessors, Hearts Unchained – At War With A Passionless World may prove to be too dark, too intense, for mainstream consumption, but Satan will surely find a way. Band mastermind Ruhsuz Cellât’s formidably individual approach and razor-sharp songwriting demand it.