Last night I put on my gothiest frock and headed down to the Shacklewell Arms for some Halloween action. Apparently, Norwegian noise masters Arabrot have been ripping eardrums since 2003 but unfortunately I was too busy listening to lo-fi garage to notice.
Arabrot are a revelation. For someone who does not profess to know much about the genre known as necromantic I managed to find lots of points of reference which simultaneously rendered Arabrot new and exciting and reassuringly familiar. Arabrot’s latest album Solar Anus is produced by Steve Albini so it’s no surprise that you can hear shades of Shellac. What did surprise me was that I could hear a splash Tom Waits in frontman Kjetil Nernes’s delivery. Their bassist was mesmerising, with his convincing rock stance and flowing locks he conjured up memories of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton.
In marrying the stark isolation of black metal with the comfort of the familiar, Arabrot are as brilliant as they are brutal. AB
