Year: 2026
Label: Handful of Hate
Rating: 8 / 10
Our long-suffering world has finally received the third album by ŁATANU, which was in the making since before the release of the second album, but was postponed for various objective reasons. The older I get, the less I like to repeat myself, so for a detailed description of the musical style of ŁATANU (if for some reason you have not heard this band before), please address to my previous reviews, and I will go into concrete details of “U imia Chaosu” ("In the Name of Chaos") immediately.
The first thing you notice on this album is the sound. The difference is especially clear if you listen to the first two records before that. I've always had mixed feelings about the sound of "Eon Hora", but compared to the new record, both it and even "Čorny manalit" don't look very strong. "U imia Chaosu" was recorded at Sanctum Sound Studio, recently founded by Belarusians in Poland, and Aahros (a member of the bands FLAMMAE and PETIT NUAGE NOIR) works as a sound engineer there. On this album, he was responsible not only for recording and mixing, but also played the role of second guitarist and bassist. Sanctum Sound is clearly capable of giving its bands a strong, high-quality and lively sound, and "U imia Chaosu" is the best proof of this. Some bands feel better in a raw and trebly forms, but ŁATANU, like NIEZGAL, works most effectively in this sound. By the way, it's worth reminding readers about the promotional video clip of the studio, where the participants of ŁATANU play MARDUK cover:
From a musical point of view, this is a ŁATANU album. No more, no less. As on previous records, there are a couple of killer tracks (in this case, the first and last), and everything else is a traditional and consistently strong Krywian Black Metal with all the characteristic traits. As before, P.Z. wrote songs that are 90% based on quirky, serpentine guitar parts that entangle one another. This is the power of Latanu! Almost the entire album is played in very fast tempo, which is good, because ŁATANU and speed are inseparable, like mashed potatoes and cutlets. It also struck me that P.Z.'s “album” approach to compositions differs from the ”split" one. For "Sixfold Kryvian Blasphemy", he wrote hymn-like tracks that could be easily brought on stage and played live for the excitement of the audience. But on the album, the songs strive for wholeness and a certain uniformity.
This time, in my opinion, Nihilation performed better than anyone. Firstly, he returned to the role of drummer after a long break (as Plague666 was unable to participate in the recording for logistic reasons). Secondly, performing vocals, he released everything that had accumulated over the past 7 years. Traditional Black Metal vocals are quite easy to perform if you sing "by the tops", but Nihilation went deep, putting all the power of his vocal cords and the poison of his soul into screaming. There's pressure, onslaught, rage, and, I'm not afraid of that word, modulations.
Lyrically, ŁATANU reached an intergalactic level. On the last album, they stormed the Sun itself, and this time they proudly declare, “The Cosmos must be ours!”. I wonder how they will share it with INQUISITION... The album's desing deserves separate description. A whole council was diligently working on it. A lot of blood and sweat was spilled, and even more dirty words were said, but in the end everything worked out. All the drawings and words in the A5 digibook are stylized as cuts on human skin. And it's so realistic that there's even a distinctive swelling around them! There was an idea to give it real volume, but I don't even want to imagine how much it would cost. The rework of Vaiug'sdrawings that always consist of thousands of lines was a titanical work by itself. Details on a video.
