“A burning black sphere of sinuous torment” is the offer from Portugal’s The Ominous Circle. You may gather, correctly, that dark ambience is at the centre of this work. Chasmic voids and echoing deathly growls dominate “Heart Girt with a Serpent”, then “From Endless Chasms” is more upbeat, reflecting a black and shadowy world of chaos. With drums crashing, guitars screeching and violence pouring through every vein, it’s hard to pin this down other than as a furious and deathly ode to an evil world.
The deep punishment continues with “Poison Fumes”, an aptly titled apocalyptic dirge. Life, if that’s what is, comes from the triggering drums and the fury of the death metal dirge. It breaks off into a sinewy and malevolent guitar solo before marching on its way defiantly as if in battle. “Ateg Gibor-Le Olam Adonai”, as well as sounding like an anagram of something, takes us forward funereally as is often the way after a battle cry. The Ominous Circle have found the space where they want to be and where they want us to be. Perhaps predictably, the album takes a turning towards doom. “A Gray Outcast” is heavy and powerful and grinds on, but doesn’t have a lot to offer. Like “Poison Fumes” it breaks away like a blood clot, spreading more suffering and chaos without adding anything to the message or the world “Appalling Ascension” is depicts. “To En” mirrors the harshly chaotic world we experienced on “From Endless Chasms”, chugging along and presenting to us a very dark piece of death metal. So too “As the Worm Descends” has entered the realms of deep and grinding death metal, toning down into growly doom before expanding into carefully controlled instrumental chaos. Industrial noises and screams open up “Consecrating His Mark”, recalling the likes of Axis of Perdition, Aborym and even Blut aus Nord, before a growly death-doom metal slugfest ensues. Unlike some of its predecessors, there is drive and energy, and the atmosphere evolves constantly.
It’s a horrible world out there. The Ominous Circle make this point in as black a way that they possibly can, but whilst I drew dark messages from “Appalling Ascension”, they seemed to be covering the same ground here and I didn’t take a lot of inspiration from it.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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