A new Acherontas album is always a dark pleasure, the last ‘Psychic Death’ did shatter my perceptions and has hardly left the CD player since purchase. Since then, a name change to ΑΧΕΡΟΝΤΑΣ has been favoured in true Hellenic devotion to their arts along with a label shift from Agonia to Zazen Sounds, which considering it is run by Acherontas V. Priest, is a hardly surprising move. On this their ninth album “the altars of the Seven Gods” are paid tribute to with seven new arcane opuses dedicated to the forces of Satanic majesty. The occult and spiritual philosophies is something that these practitioners of the left-hand path are never going to deviate from.
As a listener you don’t need to be completely enlightened by the dark flames of the irreligiosity that the band preach but you certainly do need to be prepared to dive into all the nooks and crannies of the music itself, unveiled as you traverse the depths and plunge down labyrinthine corridors of dread. ‘Lucifer-Breath of Fire’ is the 1st encounter to scorch the senses and after the sound of a windy chasm plummets into a hellacious musical storm we are quickly whipped off into the heart of diabolism. Roars, chants and groans from our narrator merge with a sudden drop into doomy territory and anyone looking for the real sound of ‘occult rock’ can stop off and gaze into its myriad lights momentarily before the next storm-laden bombast. Cataclysmic and ultimately destructive at full force along with the clang of a bell heralding damnation, this is hefty stuff. Long flowing and very melodic leads illustrate the classicism at the heart of this but just as you are experiencing a rapture from them the tables are turned as ‘Leviathan-The Fervent Scales In Reverence’ bolsters back the extremity. It’s obvious by now this is going to be a topsy-turvy dizzying ride. Chants build out the stygian dark and the majesty of these combined forces is devilishly composed as we take flight down another twisting passageway.
As we continue it seems like we are being invited to open seven distinct portals to hell. Although the delights or disasters between each are congruent, existing on the same infernal plain they each have their own distinction. The players of the coven also worship at the altar of heavy metal, the guitar playing and signatures are draped in it and although this is by far a scarier proposition than any founding father of the genre ever anticipated there is a gateway here open to those wanting to go full seven yards! ‘Belial-The Enn of Beliya’al’ takes in some of the stomping mindset and glistening guitar work of the likes of bands such as Dissection and Watain before unleashing utter chaos with a fast-strimming deluge and in the process moving between the realms of destruction and doomy dread at the drop of a pin. The contorted vocal snarl at the end suggests the devil has arrived in all his beastly grandeur which is exactly where we fluidly move to via ‘Satan-Exaltation of Unbeing,’ surging into a maelstrom with hardly a pause.
As you can imagine everything here is composed with utter devotion and I am sure once you get into lyrical content you will as contested by the meeting with ‘Hecate – Queen of the Crossroads’ have some initiation “in the Realms of the Chthonic Mysteries.” This particular assignation has proven to be a favourite, from the shiver inducing opening to the tremendous drum bombast and the clamouring clean sorcery of the rising vocals. All that’s missing perhaps is the vocal ‘nectar’ of the dark Goddess herself but you can’t have everything and this is an album that has provided plenty. Worship and tremble at the following links!
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
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