If there is one band guaranteed to get me excited about a review, it’s For Ruin. You see, gentle reader, way back in 2004, they were one of the first (if not the) first review that I did for the now sadly defunct Live4Metal.com At that time, I was impressed by the Irish band, with their subtle blending of black metal and downbeat gothic melodies. As the years have worn on, I have been fortunate to see their evolution as a band, from a talented underground outfit to (easily) my favourite Irish band. 2009’s “Last Light” was a belter of an album, and so now after four long years the boys from Cork have returned. Can Ater Angellus possibly better their earlier material?
In a word: yes. This is a polished, mature release that impossibly manages to be the perfect intersection in an imaginary Venn diagram of early Katatonia, At The Gates and Dissection. You can keep the likes of Watain and their publicity machine, (impressive though that is), in lieu of some brilliant music. “Ater Angellus” is a bloody embarrassment of riches, and sees the band hit their creative zenith. Along with the trademark dark melodies and scratchy, black metal production comes a new sense of classic metal guitar tones coming into the fray. Were it not such an obvious cliché, I might be making the claim that there is more than a hint of the classic Lizzy guitar tone to be found on some of the guitar solos here, particularly in the ripping final section of “Liturgy”, which rather impossibly manages to marry traditional heavy metal sensibilities with a furious extreme metal vibe.
Elsewhere, the song writing is clearer, more direct and more melancholic than ever before. The introductory tones to “Absentia”, for example, are almost guaranteed to bring a frown to the face, as well as an involuntary grasp for the invisible oranges. This time round, it’s Pete Alcorn (of Alestorm ) on the skins, providing a rock solid foundation on the drums, and with a slightly more powerful delivery than Steve O’Connell produced on “Last Light”, particularly evident on the slower sections, where the battery really shines through. Pete Lawlor’s bass work compliments the drumming perfectly, though I did struggle a tiny bit with the production that seemed to take a little of the punch out of the bass sound. As ever, the guitar work is stellar, both in the furious riffing and the mournful soloing. Pete Lawlor and John Murphy play the album of their careers here, with Murphy again singing with his trademark growl, perfectly decipherable, but with a touch of shredded-throat to the barbed wire delivery. The production is generally fairly good, but somehow a tiny bit sterile – which is a great shame, as the songs here are easily the best constructed of their career. This tiny (and completely subjective) gripe aside, this is straight into my top five of the year releases. A blackened death metal belter with more charisma than Barrack Obama on coke.
(9/10 Chris Davison)
Leave a Reply