What do we have here then? Oh, just a really cool split by two really cool bands, that’s all.

Ancst hail from the Berlin DIY scene and their blend of furious black metal with a hint of melody and more than a touch of hardcore (check “Patterns & Dreamers” if you don’t believe) is deadly and wholly infectious – you’ll be throwing that old invisible oranges pose before you know it. Hiveburner come from the same scene but I know bugger all about them and they are evidently quite hard to track down on the world wide web. That’s cool though, I guess?

“Faceless” slowly burns to life along lines of unnerving noise before the track kicks into a higher gear and Ancst lay waste to any notions that this was going to be an atmospheric trip into the darkness. There’s definitely a shadowed side to these songs but it lies in the words of utter despair and disgust at humanity rather than in swirling mists and ice cold structures. Ancst would likely fall into that strange “red and black metal” sub-genre that has become slightly more prominent of late and is a world full of young bands with much to say on the state of their governments, society, their lives and the effects of the modern world on those less fortunate – luckily, these German’s don’t force their message on you and they let it speak via raging blasts and the lyrics are wrought with a tangible and terrible anguish rather than being overly obvious and shouting about how everything is really, really shit.

The songs featured on this split fly and are over entirely too quickly leaving you wanting more from this group and it’s interesting to note that Ancst’s release prior to this was a two track, half hour noise/drone EP (Lamenting a Dying World) and it’s clear that they are more than willing to work without restraint or constraint within their chosen genre and “scene.” The intense pace and wild emotion that runs through these songs are signals of greater things to come. Surely a full length can’t be far off for this duo (?) and if their current catalogue is anything to go by, then it will certainly be one of the more intriguing releases of the coming year.

Hiveburner give us one track, “Destroyer of Worlds,” and it’s a blackened, dirty journey into the heart of all that is murky. Doomed landscapes of sound introduce the song on slow progressions of fuzzed out guitar and the track drips with a ghastly and mesmerising repugnance that twists into feedback laden moments, stripped back blasts and dirty, funereal passages of total annhilation and back again. Vocals are harsh and as with Ancst, full of the kind of distaste for the state that many within the underground have right now. I wish I knew more about this act (hey, Hiveburner, help a girl out?) in order to truly portray them correctly, but as it stands, I have this one song to go off – thankfully, it’s a bloody good song but still, being enigmatic is kinda over done, no? Anyway, “Destroyer of Worlds” is a revolting, writhing, sludged out mass of a song that more people need to hear. Get involved.

EDIT: It has since come to my attention that Hiveburner is actually the chaps from Ancst and this is the only track they have so far. So, there you go. Thanks for the clarification Ancst.

Buy the tape via the Ancst bandcamp page. It’s a dual release by Skull Witch Records and Mustard Mustache and there’s only 80 so hurry up.