Reviews

VEX ‘Thanatopsis’

(HPGD Productions)

These Texans have great understanding how to inject bleak atmosphere to their music, making an album well worth attention. I like it especially when the band sounds like they’re kind of stepping back, detaching themselves from the motion, letting the listener to wander through landscapes of total desolation. And then Vex charge once again with aggressive but still melodic assault of Swedish tinged black/death, along with some thrashy parts added for a good measure. Plus there are some amazing guitar solos enriching these songs, rounding off the impression that nothing has been left to chance in the creation of this slab. This album took them years in the making but I’d bet that now, when finally released, the band must be proud of the accomplishment, and rightfully so.  

Vex Myspace 

SARGEIST ‘Let the Devil In’ 

(Moribund Records)

With bands like Sargeist it’s a typical example of love it or leave it, these Finns have always been guardians of the orthodox (left hand) path of black metal and as such not even tiny little bit of interest for listeners whose taste excludes the primordial rage and unrefined darkness in music. And yet it’s this kind of people making inane comments for such bands to the effect of ‘been there, done that’. Listen, shitheads, down here in the underground we all know you’ve A) never really been there and B) hardly did anything worth mentioning. For all the others, who are digging their black metal super intense, majestically memorable and crudely extreme I say ‘Let the Devil In’ might simply be this year’s finest in that particular genre. This will beat you into submission, corrupting your senses and casting a spell of sulphur induced insanity over you. Sargeist is here to stay, restoring the faith in traditional black metal grimness.

HAERESIARCHS OF DIS 

‘Denuntiatus Cinis’  

(Moribund Records)

A combination of swarming black metal chaos, psychedelic motives and a slight folk influence is what you’d be confronted with when this one-man, California based, band pops in your player. As you’ve already guessed this stuff is somewhat experimental in its delivery but for the most part it seems to create a malicious atmosphere, and never lacks of intensity while the different influences collide into one another. Vocally this is really abrasive, reminding of Ihsahn at his most schizophrenic and the Emperor influence is also noticeable in the music, which is only to be expected when a band is trying to operate on vast canvas and forge to create non-straightforward aural darkness. Ambitious and eerie sounding, Haeresiarchs Of Dis could easily haunt your dreams. A new album is already planned for a release through Moribund Cult, so you’ve been warned.

Haeresiarchs Of Dis Myspace 

AYAT 
‘Six Years of Dormant Hatred’
(Moribund Records)

Yeah sure, Impaled Nazarene here, there, left and right… I’m not gonna hold that against the band, good taste for the extreme and all. This is also genuinely pissed-off, with an obvious ‘fukk you’ attitude, so I dig it. Filthy, rude and fun, Ayat can only get better and less derivative sounding, which hopefully they do on the new album that is promised for the coming spring. Some passages on here quite hint at the kind of madness we could expect, so keep your ears to the ground.