Aevangelist : "Enthrall to the Void of Bliss"

Not as dense and jazz like as the insanity they sprang upon us last year these guys still take you deeper into the land of profane nightmares than most. At the seven minute murk a riff rises from the murky depths to prove they are making metal and not just hell-spawned noise-scapes. The vocals stay at bubbling gurgle, like lava being poured down a drain pipe. Dissonance is nothing new for this project, it's being delved into from a more death metal perspective on this album. Baritone vocals bellow out of the distance as unnerving chimes continue to tinkle maddeningly from behind your ears. While there is more melodic and musical element to this album the chimes get repetitious by the time you get to "Gatekeeper's Scroll" , though the riffs have a catchier Deathspell Omega thing to the way they churn.

If you want an idea how dark this album is  they have to  lighten things up a bit to get gothy on "Alchemy" which I am of course going to immediately think is the best song on the album though it comes across almost more like an interlude in comparison to the other songs.Things once again change for the almost more depressive "Levitating Stones" which has the sample of someone weeping over the first verse and some real ugliness being summoned by the down tuned guitars.Higher out of key vocals whine in the periphery. They do give the the songs room to breath even with the oppressive heaviness of this album. It sounds like they are gutting a pig at the beginning of "Emanation". The bass leads of the verse before the hit you with a crazed blast in what is the albums most black metal moment thus far.


 They close the album with the thirteen plus minutes of "Meditation of Transcendental Evil". It starts with an orgy of wailing and gnashing of teeth before going into some dense yet esoterically tortured death metal. The speed up in a rather disjointed manner with the two guitars parts not really cooperating. The riffs drone on, but don't really have the same teeth some of the other guitars parts have had on this one. Overall this album is an improvement, the last song is the only one that feels like filler to me and even then it has a few moments which if combined could have made for an impressive five minute song. I think this is where experimentation and metal meet at a dark crossroads which works well. I'll give this one an 8.5. Twenty Buck Spin releases this insanity on the world October 9th.