Azavatar: s/T

Not sure why I decided to give Azavatar's album a spin aside from the fact that when there is nothing else new to listen to begin digging back into my in-box.  This German band boasts vocals that are grim and scraping closer to a croak than not. They are eager to blast beat you when given the chance. I am glad these guys do not sound anything like Deathspell Omega there are too many black metal bands coming out that are influenced by those guys. The drums do get a little overzealous toward the end of the song as the riffs grow more restless, but it's not a total prog out. This album is brought to you by the letter K as "Kurse" comes after "Kvlt", suppose I will have to throw this up on Cvlt Nation for that reason.

I was surprised the lyric "as you kissed me goodbye" came out of this band. They do hit a nice sonic field that floats you away on "Kurse". Midway through the song there is a cool change in guitar tone as it is cleaner and re-verbed out. "Kaos" and yes every song begins with K, starts off at creep to catch you off guard for the blast beats to come. The lyrics to "Kaos" focus on worshipping the stars and the sun.  The fourteen minute "Krest" follows. It opens with a doomy throb, but from what we've hear up until this point I am expecting the speed to kick in at any minute, it's a test to see how long they can restrain themselves from defaulting into it. By the three minute mark the build has them about to burst if they don't go into a blast beat, the drummer fighting the temptation with an undercurrent of double bass.  They give in at the right minute like you knew they were going to.  They redeem themselves with the disjointed darkness the delve into in the song's final three minutes.

They start "Krypt" with the blasting making no attempt to do anything other than blast you with it. They only keep it up for a minute and a half. It's an eleven and a half minute song so you knew they would relent into something more melodic since that is the formula they seem to work upon. They go for something dreadfully creepy after the blasting and keep digging into deeper and darker places which is fitting for a crypt with a k, there is something about a putrid womb, as he tells his mother the crypt was her all along. So who doesn't enjoy some self deprecating black metal.  I'll round this one up to a 9 as these guys really delivered and surprised me with this one. I look forward to catching what they do in the future.Art of Propaganda will be releasing this album June 29th.