I love discovering bands that I’ve never heard before. In fact, if you look at any of the reviews I’ve done here on the Black Metal Archives so far – all two of them at time of writing, look at me go – you’ll notice that they aren’t your usual ‘Oh, isn’t Blaze in the Northern Sky a masterpiece’ kind of deal, where a fan, such as myself, will tell you just how great he or she thinks a classic album is.

Instead, what I want to do with reviews is to shine a light on bands that you might not have heard before and, hopefully, give them some form of exposure outside of what they usually have. I mean, classic album reviews are for when I need to start doing listicals on the YouTube channel – got to get them views up somehow! – but as for this site here, I want to stick to as many lesser known bands, or at least, bands I’m not that familiar with. And Tigguo Cobauc falls into that category quite nicely for me. Truth be told, if our paths hadn’t crossed over on Bluesky – where all the cool kids hang out now – then there’s a good chance I would’ve gone through the rest of my life not knowing that Tigguo Cobauc exsisted, and that would’ve been a crime against my ears, as their latest album, A Fountain of Anguish is Gone is a fucking masterpiece.

The blurb on their Bandcamp page states that their ‘…sound can best be described as huge, blending black metal atmospheres, the sheer heaviness of Doom and the raw power of punk…’ and that is, quite probably, the most honest appraisal of a bands own sound that I have ever read. A lot of groups talk a good game, but few can ever back it up. Fortunately for us, Tigguo Cobauc can definitely walk the walk. From the driving, pounding force of the opener, Craving for Slay, to haunting and hypnotic closer, Deliverance, A Fountain of Anguish is Gone never steps a foot wrong. With vocals ranging from gutteral cries that would scare the shit out of a demon to the evocative and subtle sounds of a tired soul, Reno Ramos runs the gauntlet of emotion while underpinning it all with some very deft bass work, backed up in no small part by some excellent drum work from Lloyd David. This tasty layer cake is then adorned with a thick centre of vicious and brutal guitar work by Luca Martello and it is all topped off by a delicious frosting of symphonic keyboards courtesy of Wayne Turton.

And I realise from that analogy that I might be hungry.

Anyway, besides all that, my use of the word symphonic is the best way to describe Tigguo Cobauc’s A Fountain of Anguish is Gone as, at least to me, that is what it sounds like. A symphony. An angry, tortured, black metal bastard of a symphony, but a symphony nonetheless, and nowhere is this on show more than on Eternal Quietus, which just so happens to be my favourite track on the album.

It lulls you into a false sense of security with almost sweet whispered promises to start and then within the first 20 or so seconds, it’s trying to climb out of your headphones to bite your fucking face off. But this isn’t just a balls to the wall, black metal heads-down-see-you-at-the-finish-lads style seven minute romp, as Eternal Quietus slows down and hits so hard and heavy in the middle that the remainder of the song is a soundscape that threatens to beat you to death, very slowly and with a very large sledgehammer. And I fucking love it.

I don’t do a rating system here on the Black Metal Archives, mainly because I’m a lazy bastard who couldn’t be arsed to figure one out, but if I did then Tigguo Cobauc’s A Fountain of Anguish is Gone would be five out of five, ten out of ten, A plus, or whatever other madness I had come up with. It really is that damn good.

Head on over to Tigguo Cobauc’s Bandcamp page and pick up A Fountain of Anguish is Gone for just five quid. Five quid! That’s a fucking steal for an album of the year contender.