Antlers : A Gaze Into the Abyss"

Antlers shows that they are capable musicians  right from the intro  of their album " A Gaze Into the Abyss" , but when they blast into " A Carnival of Freedom and Betrayal" they sound like every other band who races into their blast beats. To me I have been there done that and got the t-shirt so I wan to hear how this is worked into black metal in a new and interesting way. There are some mighty roars that bellow out of this. Around the two and a half minute mark there some punches that stray from blast beats then it finally gets a groove at the three minute mark.They pullout a guitar solo and then I am beginning to get impressed since they are far and few between in black metal. "Hundreds' slows it's in a more sweeping cascade of hypnotic black metal making itself much more interesting than the unabashed one direction of the blast beat. They prove themselves to be pretty capable songwriters on this one and are able to hold a steady groove that is dark with sonic power. The vocals stay in their mid range rasp for most of the album sometimes going tino more of an extended growling bellow. The song retains its mean churn, but doesn't wear out its welcome as these guys keep most of the songs in the eight minute range, the longest being ten, but the stay on task and don't wander off .

They blast off again on " To the Throats" They remain at a rabid pace for the first half of the song then slow down to let it ring out in a Burzum like drone. Watain gets a lot of crap for coping off of Dissection, but they give the Dissection worship the full blown Thulcandra treatment on "A Jail of Flesh".They sprawl out for the final song "Memories of the Extinct". For these guys to be a German band they are not as stiff and militant as most German metal. The hit this on hard and fast staying in an unrelenting blitz mode for the first three minutes. These guys are pretty solid for the whole cascadian sort of black metal sound though they infuse a lot more Swedish styled sounds into the mix , I'll give it a 8.5. 4.2