Ashes of Angels

Here we have a fairly unsurprising album from erstwhile Antaeus frontman MkM, joined by multi-instrumentalist “Bestial Satanic T”, also known as Sebastien Tulvi from, oddly enough, popular purveyors of brutal death, Aborted. It’s far less tinny and fast than Antaeus, with a powerful, reverberating and murky sound that reminds me of Swedish myspace-haters Graupel. MkM has also previously had a hand in Temple of Baal, who I reviewed last week, and in comparison to whom Aosoth are really very straightforward. (That’s saying a lot, because Temple of Baal are hardly John Zorn). It’s satanic black metal, Jim, and very much as we know it.So you know what to expect, and yes, it is done pretty well. The sound is roaring and fast, with an imperiously blasphemous attitude. The riffs groan ominously and the drumming is effectively blasting- with the kind of double-kicking that you’d expect from an Aborted member. Some of the songs are pleasingly vicious; mainly the opener, Songs Without Lungs which generates real energy and is a clattering, violent start to the record. Riffs are totally basic, and therefore primitively effective. Then, as most bands of this ilk need to be able to do, they also turn their hands to dissonant and eerie slower tempos, as on Path of Twisted Light. This is probably one of their most successful songs, wading pestilentially as it does through a grimy swamp of cacophony, before suddenly exploding into a horrifying tremolo-blasted slaughterhouse. Throughout, their aforementioned murky tone gives it an admirably uncompromising atmosphere, although it is very rarely a genuinely scary albumI don’t want to write too much more about this, as doing so would necessarily be repeating myself. This is good, powerful black metal. But it is also nothing most people here won’t have heard before.