Abazagorath | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on October 7, 2014 via Eternal Death
It’s difficult to review black metal because you’re immediately forced onto your back foot – it’s shunned by most metalheads, because they’re scared of it, which means that as a genre it usually gets lumped with more experimental music, guaranteeing a much narrower market. It’s good for the scene to be insular and closed off from the mainstream, but it makes explaining it to anyone a real pain in the arse. I say this as a fan of the genre – I can’t imagine what it’s like being in a band like Abazagorath, who first got together twenty years ago, and having to explain to your nan or your bank manager what you do. Black metal is my absolute favourite genre of music because it still feels naughty to listen to. It makes you feel cooler, more of a tough guy, like you’re still young, and fun, and rebellious. I’m so happy to see a band still flying the flag for truly satanic, hateful blasphemy, exactly the kind of band I can get behind – this organic farming ambient celestial Wolves in the Throne Room movement is bullshit, I need blast beats and riffs. Interestingly enough Abazagorath, like WITTR, are also American – from New Jersey – but they’ve been around since the mid-nineties, making them very much the elder statesmen of the USBM scene. That they’ve produced as brutal an album as The Satantic Verses nearly twenty years after first forming is testament to their musical abilities and to the legitimacy and versatility of black metal as a musical genre.
They really run the ropes of the genre through the mill on this record – I wouldn’t quite go so far as calling it black prog, but there’s certainly more progressive elements than you’d expect from such a traditional looking (for the genre) record. Take the epic title track – believe me, if you hear a catchier ten minute-long black metal song this year, then you’re a fucking liar. It’s a modern black metal anthem. After a few listens, you will definitely be humming that riff as you’re filling in your working tax credit checklist, or waiting in the doctor’s surgery. There’s also the excellent called ‘A City Visible But Unseen’, which I would genuinely place against any metal instrumental of the last thirty years. The music that Abazagorath have created harkens back to the earliest days of the second wave of black metal, if not the excellent clarity of sound. Loads of modern black metal bands fake that cheap shit kvlt sound through studio processing, which just isn’t necessary and, if you’re the real deal, you don’t need to mess around with the music like that. The production is less crushing than you would get on a 1349 record, but often that huge sound is at the expense of dynamics, and can muddy the sound, which isn’t a problem here – the songs shine through the crisp production and every guitar line, every quiet bit and loud bit, every floor tom and cymbal crash is present and correct. I’d love to see them tear these songs up live.
The occasional piggy squeals and processed vocals really bothered me, as it took away from the purity of the sound. This isn’t metalcore, this is pure American hatred. I also thought that the orchestral instrumentation and occasional choral voices were a strange addition, making this more epic and gothic than you’d probably expect. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but it seemed randomly deployed here or there in a part of a song that didn’t really need it. For instance, in ‘Mahound’, about four minutes thirty in (seven minute song, by the way), a choir suddenly kicks in. Then, gone, after less than a thirty seconds. It doesn’t ruin the song by any means, it just didn’t add anything. They’re also present on ‘The Angel Gabriel’ – more ethereal than before, they carry on for longer and are a lot spookier, but then the meat of the song kicks in and they’re gone. It might be a personal, Cradle of Filth-inspired instinctive hatred of choral parts in black metal, but they just didn’t work for me. Besides that, ‘The Angel Gabriel’ is utterly brutal and probably my favourite song on The Satanic Verses, which is saying a lot.
The best part is that what makes this album even better is it all comes together really well. Each song fits nicely with the one that came before it, and even the gorgeous acoustic interlude – ‘Ayesha’ – sits well with everything else on offer. As I say, it’s a really good album. I’d compare it favourably against anything from the last ten years, and proves that the US can easily stand up to those European bully-boys with their blonde hair and frosty breath. If anyone should be a standard-bearer for the introduction of black metal into normal society, it’s Abazagorath. The Satanic Verses proves that they have got everything you need to make great modern black metal – an ear for a great song combined with a hatred of religion and society in general. I loved it, and needed a path back into black metal, which I’d strayed from in recent months. So thanks, Abazagorath, and Eternal Death Records, for the gift of hatred.
