Extreme music has long since transcended the standard four-guys-on-a-stage, dressed to impress and entertain for an hour or two on a Saturday night. Ok, maybe that Rubicon was crossed way back in the 1960s or 1970s – maybe even earlier, jazz fans, blues fans and tribal medicine men might argue. But even then most people turned up to sing along or tap their feet and have a good time rather than have those reality-shifting moments undoubtedly being enjoyed by a small portion of the audience. But some black metal bands – and, for that matter, bands from a host of other dark corners of the metal sphere – are developing such a knack for creating a multidimensional sound that to resist being sucked into the warp is fruitless even in the most stone-cold sober moments. A joyride in your grey matter or an exercise in audience participation of the mind that owes as much to Pink Floyd as it does to Darkthrone. Amestigon is the latest band I’ve heard which takes over the controls of your brain with moments that are hauntingly sublime even more than they are chillingly aggressive. Thier contains four extended tracks that can either be experienced as individual pieces, but which when listened from end-to-end quite easily put Amestigon into one of the best ‘occult’ black metal explorations I’ve come across.
Thier is the latest of a series of similar releases from World Terror Command which includes Acherontas, Ascension, Dysangelium and Devathorn, and that is, amazingly, only in the past three months. So it’s in very good company. But, even in that company, this is a standout album. It seizes upon the base elements of black metal and absorbs it into the same nihilistic void. It then moulds it into something with direction, form and purpose, even though that purpose is quite self-evidently the appreciation of something very evil indeed. A structured ritual that, as with all this type of expansive and explorative black metal, puts repetition to excellent use while never resisting the constant urge to evolve and adapt by bringing in new, sinister textures. It’s not long into the opening 13 minute track before the direction of travel is revealed. But it’s the second track, the oddly titled ‘358’ which really begins to drag you down into Amestigon’s lightless realm. The finale of the track is brought down with an evil-soaked, single-picked riff that could quite easily have come from the guitar of a spaced-out 60s Keith Richards arriving straight from a pact with the horned one himself. But each of the tracks is rich in atmosphere and ideas that amply reward repeated listens – picking up the persistent themes, musical call backs and the use of different guitar and vocal techniques to drench the album in atmosphere. And each time you’re drawn into the rhythm of the adventure, there’s always an ambush or two waiting for you in the undergrowth along the way.
Perhaps it’s not that surprising there is something good going on here – Amestigon includes two former members of Abigor, one of which is Summoning vocalist Silenius. So nailing you inverted with atmosphere and providing sonic blows is what these guys do best. Amestigon have been going since around 1995 with mainly demos and a couple of EPs and finally got round to releasing their first album in 2010. The chasm created by Amestigon on this, their second full length, reaches its zenith on the 20 minute title track. The dark effect of the riffs, which often sound like they’ve been recorded in a dingy vault somewhere under an abandoned church, feels like it might actually begin to bend the light towards it like the force of some pitch black nebula. The pent-up release provided by the second half of the track hurls the same energy outwards with an equal and opposite surge of crooked, crackling force. The tremendous climax would be enough to end the album if Amestigon didn’t have better ideas. The fourth track rounds of the album with an unsettling rush of sound that seals the deal nicely even if it almost seems superfluous – or perhaps gratuitous might be a better description – after the previous track which lesser bands could easily have left as a finale. It’s a superb finish to an album that delivers on every level even after the bar for occult black metal has been raised high by a flood of recent releases from WTC and many others. If this doesn’t get your blood pumping then you may already be forever lost to the light. But, as they say, even as you approach the gates of heaven, you may still find that hidden path that leads off to the left hand side. Keep this by your side and you will forever have your own personal sign post. An excellent release.
(9/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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