If there are two things in my life I love more than anything, it’s horror and black metal. I’ve always been fascinated by both – hence the Black Metal Archives and the book about the new wave of horror that I’m working on, honest Mr. Publisher, and not finding other things to occupy my time instead, such as running a black metal website – and considering that the latter has always been drenched in the former, from its first tentative bloody footsteps to today, then that’s not really that much of a surprise. So, you would think that Lastat’s new EP, Tell Tales of Mischief Night, would be right up my alley, and you’d be right.

Tell Tales of Mischief Night sets out its stall from the get-go as we are greated to the sound of happy trick or treaters laughing as they go door to door. This laughter suddenly turns to screams when they come face to face with a chainsaw weilding maniac, and we are off to the races.

Across Tell Tales of Mischief Night‘s three track, sixteen minute plus runtime, Lastat don’t let up for a second. This is in your face black metal, with everything turned up to eleven and aimed right at you, with vocals from the bowels of hell themselves, but it isn’t just a simple case of raw for the sake of being raw, because Lastat sprinkles a heavy dose of atmosphere throughout. Whether that’s the choral lines of opener Hallows Eve From Hell, or the haunting keyboards and sound effects that fill the sound of each track on offer, Tell Tales of Mischief Night is the perfect soundtrack for the unholiest of times.

Which, I thought, was a clever tagline that I had come up with to describe Lastat’s latest EP, until I was re-reading the blurb and noticed that they themselves had written;

let this EP guide you through a haunting soundscape that brings Mischief Night’s horrors to life.”

But the point remains the same. This is a brilliant horror inspired piece of art, and one that I will quite happily go back to again and again. Lastat’s Tell Tales of Mischief Night isn’t just for Halloween, it’s for all year round and I, for one, can’t wait to see the look on my families faces when we’re all gathered together on Christmas day and I slap this bastard on.

You can buy Lastat’s new EP, Tell Tales of Mischief Night, on their Bandcamp page.