Anagnorisis named their album Beyond All Light for a pretty good reason. While the album may have its various serene moments, there motif is nothing but dark and evil. Darkness being their weapon of choice, modern black metal mixed with death metal being the execution. Cry foul if you will, this album has epic and dark scrawled all over it, what more do you want.
Opener ‘Eulerian Path’ is a steady collapse into an epic savagery. With an underlying tone of electronics mixed into the blast beats, tremolo picking, break-neck riffs and screams of a man who sounds on his last whim, this is truly an album opener. ‘The Cursed Blood’ is an aural battery from start to finish. The brief sampled section in its middle is made all the more intense with its lack of instruments and vocals only. Lyrically, it’s a slit to the wrist and a spit in the eye of God. Metal at its finest.
‘Abyss’ falls in the middle of the album, and although it’s a full song and not an interlude, it could be looked at that way. Interlude meaning it builds tension. It’s a different song, there is no pattern to be found yet it has hooks all over that will catch you. A very well written song that ends with an apocalyptic message on an intense note. Following that, ‘Bountiful Godless Life’ opens like an eternal pyre, only to have an acoustic passage in the song that is haunting and beautiful. When it fades back into electric, it’s epic and breathless to the end. Closing track ‘Forever Night’ is a near 10 minute representation of all that Anagnorisis is capable of, musically and lyrically. All tracks on any album essentially lead to the closing track. I’ve yet to see an album that didn’t. But here, here we have an utterly intense and spiteful song of sorrow and pain. This is an epic album ender, the band firing every weapon they have, never letting up even in their melodic moments. You can feel every note, drum beat and vocal. And it hurts like hell. But it feels so good.
You can, and should, pick up Anagnorisis’ Beyond All Light, from the band themselves on their website. A solid black-death metal album rife with emotion and darkness, don’t miss out on this one. Support these guys and buy a damn t-shirt from them too. Support the USBM scene.
HAIL!!!
