Aevangelist: "Writhes in the Murk"

It's amazing that two dudes are responsible for this slab of nocturnal emission. It's a radical departure from "Omen Ex Simulacra". The album starts with a burst of spastic darkness that slowly begins to take form. True to it's title the guitar riffs writhe together. This is as dark and murky as any of the occult death metal that began cropping up a few years ago after bands began re-discovering Incantation. At first It seem like this chaos is just the intro and you are waiting for every thing to congeal together, but it stays loose and noisey like a jazz album. Abstract death metal coming together for one mammoth chug at the end of the song, but with so many bizarre over-dubbed tracks swirling around it.

"The Only Grave" spills out of the opener like the guts of a slaughtered pig. There are blasty section cut into this slab of dinosaur meat, that is almost to tough for your ears to chew. Not unlike that Hexis album this is so heavy it takes several sittings to fully digest. The vocal are inhumanly guttural, just a sewer drain of a gurgle bubbling into a microphone. In a similar fashion the next song spills out of it. This album comes across as feeling more black metal to me due to the dissonance and the ambiance, despite the gore ridden take on the spewed vocals.

With a casual listen this might sound like a tangled mess, but these guys have not forsaken their chops. The drumming might be even more technical than their previous work. The riffs when they do come together are crushing. There are sections that you almost don't want to listen to in your house alone at night, they are so creepy. Clean vocals moan out from under the gurgling. "Aelixir" has a coat of white noise over it, before morphing into a John Zorn like jazz exploration churning in hell.

"Harken to the Flesh" plods from a cess pool of lurching doom. The growls are more haphazard it reminds me of a section from "My Ass is on Fire" off the first Mr. Bungle album. The more black metal element slither in as the song spirals down into a denser climate not unlike Deathspell Omega. This lead to the most traditionally metal song "Halo of Lamented Glory" which at first seems trite compared to some of the sonic filth this album has already unleashed upon your ears. It is the most death metal song of the album.


The title track actually includes some clean guitar that rings out into the dissonance and at other time offsets a heavy groove that takes place in the distance behind it. The sample of a girls voice speaking fades in out of the din. This almost takes the place of the vocal which gurgle here and there out of the shadows.

They have transcended death metal here and fans of Industrial and harsher noise, should try this on for size. It's extremely an dense listen which catches you off guard. I'll give it a 9.5, though I might grow to appreciate more with each listen.