HATE – BELLUM REGIIS LP

With a dozen ferocious and acclaimed albums since 1996’s Daemon Qui Fecit Terra, Hate’s fortunate thirteenth album, Bellum Regiis, finds the relentless Polish quartet forging a bolder and more aggressive style than ever. The nine songs on Bellum Regiis see vocalist/guitarist ATF Sinner, guitarist Domin, drummer Nar-Sil and bassist Tiermes hone a modern sound full of eerie atmosphere and depth. Produced by David Castillo (Candlemass, Carcass, Dark Tranquility, Katatonia) at Stockholm’s Grondahl Studio, Bellum Regiis is lyrically a more “human and personal” album than Rugia. The songs of Bellum Regiis, explains founder Sinner, are a contemporary sonic and visual exploration of “a struggle for power and everything that goes with it”.

More than three decades into a stellar career, Bellum Regiis finds Sinner as profound and poetic as ever, if not more so. Take “A Ghost of Lost Delight”, a song possessed by a strange melancholy and meditation. Delving into the cycles of life and death, Hate ultimately offer a powerful and positive plea for hope in dark times, as relevant in 2025 as in eons past. As Sinner sings: “In darkness we crawl towards the starlight / In a race against the current / We saved our world from oblivion / Ghosts of lost joy… now live!”