Inquisition- Obscure Verses for the Multiverse(2013)

Inquisition- Obscure Verses for the Multiverse

Inquisition releasing a new album isn't just a big deal among the initiated in the cloak and dagger crowd.  It's a time of furious infighting over Dagon's vocal transformation from early releases like Incense of Rest to more recent releases like Nefarious Dismal Orations.  It's a time when the zealot seeks to destroy "the false"and disinterested, who ask: "What's the big deal?  Now Sunbather, that's awesome."  It's a time of comparisons between different era's, different guitar sounds and different song writing techniques spanning a career of consistent excellence and divisive interpretations.

Obscure Verses for the Multiverse is not just another release.  It's an event.

Don't mistake this for hyperbolic praise for Obscure Verses.  It's merely an observation.  In truth, Obscure Verses is as rock solid and listenable as any release they band have produced, occasionally ascending to something greater.  It's melodic, dissonant, big and ballsy, featuring the cleanest and punchiest sound the band have ever produced, though not quite as sonically massive or warm as Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm.  It's got equal appeal among traditionalists, Black Metal newbies with a hard on for Marduk and those craving walls of atmosphere; this is the most Populist Inquisition release to date.

This isn't a bad thing: Inquisition, newly minted to Season of Mist and releasing Obscure Verses with the biggest budget the duo have ever enjoyed, have every reason to expand their audience.  The fact that they are doing so while remaining 100% true to the sound and style that made them the dark God's of Black Metal atmosphere and intensity is all the better.  This is vintage Inquisition magic: riffs, riffs and more riffs, filtered through a fog of cosmic gas and inter- dimensional diffuse and regurgitated by The Old Gods into sound waves big enough to smother lungs and snap bones.  Dagon rants and raves in alien tongues like an extraterrestrial minister lost in a demonic trance, while a wall of dense sound crashes down upon you.  The budget may be bigger, the guitar sound cleaner and the drums punchier, but this is simply Inquisition rendered in a new light.

Dagon's guitar is a weapon of mass destruction; a mighty axe, crafted from the nucleus of a long dead comet.  It is the lifeblood of Obscure Verses, the center of it's might gravitational pull, and strikes with the force of planetary inertia.  Which is both the most excellent aspect of Obscure Verses and it's biggest failure: this is perhaps the least imaginative and dynamic Inquisition release to date.  Outside of some surprising vocal variety on "Darkness Flows Toward Unseen Horizons," this album feels largely like a complete rehashing of the bands previously ventured paths.  It's hard to argue with the results in the long run, but when stacked up to a discography of almost endless brilliance and consistent redefinition of their sound, Obscure Verses feels like the second time for the first time in the bands legacy.

Yet if Obscure Verses doesn't completely dominate your listening for at least a week, hang up your spurs and buy a Lorde album... or Black Eyed Peas.  Whatever the kids are listening to.  This is such a purely energetic album, bristling with a true love for Metal and what makes this genre so god dame awesome is on full display.  The band are such master technicians, such master song writers and craftsmen, that anything they touch will exude an artistic confidence and listenability few bands can match.  Obscure Verses is more a testament to the artist who created it than the art itself.

Rating: 8/10

Bölzer- Aura(2013)

Bölzer- Aura

Wow.

If you find yourself at a loss for words after spinning Aura, the devastating and fresh EP from Switzerland's resident warlocks Bölzer, you are certainly not alone.  Aura is an album with a sound and sense of style no other has been able to obtain, and stands as one of Death Metal's most unique and mystifying records.  It's heaviness is matched only by the controlled but adventurous creativity, and both are completely dwarfed by the sheer sonic mass of it's riffs; all a galactic force of sheer density and dynamic melody  The second "Entranced by the Wolfshook" begins to soar from your speakers like a comet streaking across a blood red and black sky, leaving in it's wake ominous omens of apocalypse, you'll fully understand what you are listening to hasn't been attempted before.  It's exciting, and even more so worth experiencing first hand.

Bölzer has built the very essence of Aura around brilliant guitar work and flawless song-writing.  I've already described the riffs as monolithic, and to be honest there are a dozen other adjectives I could throw at them: titanic, haunting, oddly beautiful, captivating.  It goes without saying that Aura is the great guitar driven album of the year, and it a swirling mass of Blackened Death Metal which has no real analog in the rest of the scene.  Aura is at it's heart a very old-school sounding album.  Possessing little in the way of blast beats and no ambient keyboard or electronic noises, Aura feels like an album from the early years of Death Metal with it's supreme emphasis on riffs, riffs, and more riffs.  Yet Aura also feels alien; it's creativity borders on dangerous and challenging to the established song-writing in the scene.  Imagine Incantation and Asphyx had launched Onward to Golgotha and Last One on Earth into space, where it was discovered by an alien intelligence possessing the technology to use sound as a way to rip planets into pieces for some demented astrological property management.  Imagine that they wrote their own Death Metal album after absorbing these albums for a decade and added their own utterly inhuman flavor to it, then sent the sheet music to Switzerland in a pod which I imagine both HzR and KzR discovered. Aura seems like their near perfect attempt to translate this inconceivable creation with pathetic human instruments.

I like the space theme here, because Aura has the sort of expansive and riff driven sound which brings to mind early Post-Sludge masters Neurosis and Isis and the thundering and classic domination of Celtic Frost.  There are so many potential influences here, and they are all melted down and folded together to form a steel that cannot be broken; it will slice through your flesh with the ease of the metaphorical knife into the metaphorical flesh-butter.  This is all aided by the perfect tendons which hold the musculature of the album together: the drumming is effective and unobtrusive, and it bears mentioning again how nice it is not being assaulted by endless blast-beats.  The production is expansive, spacey and raw, yet even and incredibly full throated; Aura sounds fucking great, especially on vinyl(this is the kind of record made with wax in mind.)  And the vocals are second only to the riffs in pure power and effectiveness; KzR mixes a solid guttural growl with a strong mid-register scream, but he really shines with his moaning, tortured clean yells.  When KzR starts torturing his throat over this tsunami-sized riffs, it really drives home the Neurosis influence on Aura, though Blackend Death Metal remains the core of the albums sound.  This is an album which can bring together the trve and the false together for some fascinating pillow talk.

Whether listening to the gorgeous "Entranced by the Wolfshook," with its addicting and hook laden riffs full to bursting with dissonance and melody, or being crushed under the massive weight and repetition of "The Great Unifier," an unholy nightmare mash of Deathspell Omega, Incantation and Neurosis, you can feel the weight and power of each track work their way to your very core.  It leads to an incredible gushing of pure Metal-fucking-joy; Aura got me excited about fucking Metal like I was 13 years old again and just discovering heavier music for the first time.  I imagine Aura has that effect on many listeners, including putting fucking in front of Metal every time you say it, write it or think it.  Considering the cynacism of elder-status as a Metal fan, Aura accomplished something that not a whole lot of albums accomplish.  Perfection?  No.  Fucking Metal?  Verily.  Experience it.  I'll see you in the void.

Rating: 9.5/10

Ogdru Jahad- I

Ogdru Jahad- I

A savage and bestial grind from beginning to end, Ogdru Jahad's I is an album which fits comfortably into the mechanically putrid rot and filth of the scene, going through the ritualistic motions for a solid, uninspiring 30 minutes.  Complete with blasphemous artwork and Lovecraftian references, I is an album as predictable as it ugly, minus of course the brilliant cover art, though this is another staple of the scene that shouldn't be surprising, or the limited edition clear vinyl the album comes on(only 200 copies of course).

That's the thing about I that I find far more fascinating; its an album that feels like it was created in some sort of Ross Bay Cult-styled atomic generator which is pushing out filth encrusted, bullet-belted abominations in droves.  I itself couldn't be a more basic album; it sounds like Blasphemy, Conqueror and Archgoat, with hints of Thrash and First Wave Black Metal mixed in for extra credibility.  It features no unique traits to speak of, other than perhaps a  pair of songs which sound like they feature the same exact riff played only slightly differently in "Unholy Blessings" and "Empty Jehovah."  There are some killer tracks to be sure, with the groovy and barbaric "Weeping of Angels" and the utterly uncompromising and blistering "Necromantic Rites" standing out a solid highlights.  "Necromantic Rites" in particular features a hint of dissonance and mildly complex song structure, though it's fleeting and the grind will overwhelm all originality before the end.

What's more fascinating about I is how neatly in fits into the current Bestial Black/Death scene; another "super group" release featuring members of a dozen other bands including the mighty Lucitation and Sadomator.  It features glorious cover art courtesy of Alexander L Brown, whose done the artwork for dozens of other similar albums.  It's released on one of the premiere labels for such albums in Iron Bonehead Productions, and comes in both black and limited edition clear vinyl(it's since been released on CD as well).  You can check the boxes both sonically and culturally with I and neatly place in on the bookshelf in between your Gods of War re-press and your H.P. Lovecraft biography, never to be listened to after a few initial spins again and more than likely to end up on discogs.com for triple what was paid for it new 5 years from now.

In an of itself, Odgru Jahad's I is an inoffensive album which has some limited visceral intensity, but it's an album so comfortable and safe that it feels stale and bland right out of the gate.  From the very second the opening sample fades out and the opening riff slices through the air, the next 30 minutes is laid out directly in front of you, the bloody puzzle pieces stitched together smoothly.  No bumps, no pauses and no mercy.  And no fun.

Rating: 5.5/10

Antediluvian- λόγος(2013)

 

Antediluvian- λόγος

 

Few bands receive as much universal praise and are endowed with as many accolades as the mighty Antediluvian, and deservedly so.  The bands last two releases, Through the Cervix of Hawaah and the brilliant split with Adversarial Initiated in Impiety as Mysteries, have set the standard for atmospheric, suffocating Occult Black/Death; terrifying and twisted in ways few artists have been able to match while developing a sound which sits on wholly unique ground.  Its been a truly horrendous transformation for an artist which started out as merely another Incantation-clone, and as λόγος(Logos) shows, it is a metamorphosis which is not yet complete.

 

Its a very subtle evolution on λόγος from the bands two previous albums; crushing, massive Black/Death riffs, twisted progressions, wild and chaotic drumming tempos and Nabucodnosor's squishy guttural vocals are still the centerpiece of Antediluvian's sound and λόγος is no exception from the bands two previous releases.  The devil is(probably literally) in the details here; λόγος is a more technical, chaotic, avant-garde release than I was really expecting from these Canadians.  While Through the Cervix and Initiated in Impiety had these inhuman, disjointed chaotic moments, they were tempered by plenty of rhythmically un-obtuse sections and lots of Doom-y repose.  Yet these moments have almost completely disappeared from λόγος, and instead the album is dominated by the gnarled and truculent compositions, creating a level of density few albums possess.

 

Its probably seems insane to think of anything from Antediluvian as "catchy," but going back to Through the Cervix in particular I was struck by just how many memorable many of the tracks were.  The crushing grooves of "Luminous Harvest" and the blistering yet simple assaults of "Turquoise Harvest" could really stick with you well after the fact, and despite the albums truly insane moments and thick atmosphere it was an album which felt grounded in good old fashion neck snapping Death Metal.  λόγος on the other hand is far more relentless and rhythmically chaotic: the drumming of Mars Sekhmet is far more turbulent and disjointed, and rarely is there ever a moment to hang your hat on, while the noisy elements of Antediluvian's sound have far exceeded previous releases.  Her performance on the kit is daunting to be sure, and those looking for neck surgery are the only ones who should even attempt to do anything even close to head bang.

 

The subtly of this is key here, and λόγος still feels and sounds very much like an Antediluvian release.  "The Ash and the Stars" twists and turns in the hurricane winds, and evokes the nightmares of ancient spirits with dissonant leads and swirling riffs.  "Nuclear Crucifixion(Turning the Spear Inward)" has some of the few remnants of catchiness and memorability left on this album, though it would have been the most chaotic track on Through the Cervix; it has some driving Incantation-style tremolo-picked assaults and some softer, less compositionally dense moments that offer a small reprieve from the onslaught.  "Towers of Silence" is truly an abomination, a bleak and devastating slice of Blackened Death Metal with perhaps the most ironic title ever, as the density and noise on this track is simply overwhelming.

 

If I can levy any major complaints at λόγος, they lie with the production: the drum sound is very hollow and while balanced with the mix seem loud, especially the snare, and the guitars sound much thinner and uglier than the warmness of Through the Cervix or Initiated in Impiety.  With how chaotic and dense the drumming is, the drum sound can become very obnoxious.  Its not a bad production mix per-se, but in comparison to previous releases this might be my least favorite since the bands early, nearly unlistenable demo material.

 

But from a song writing perspective, I find λόγος to be a slightly inferior album to Through the Cervix of Hawaah.  I find myself impressed with the bands continued foray to relentless chaos and utter hatred for their listeners, but part of me misses those truly memorable moments of the past.  I get far too much of a Portal vibe from λόγος, and while this album quite easily destroys anything that Portal have ever released on every conceivable level, it still suffers from too much noise and inhuman tempos to be truly enjoyable all the time.  λόγος offers more good than bad to be sure, but be prepared for an album which will quite literally hate you to death.

 

Rating: 8.5/10

Cultes Des Ghoules- Henbane(2013)

Cultes Des Ghoules- Henbane

The Polish Necro Warlocks of Cultes Des Ghoules are back, and this time they a more learned, cunning and sadistic force for the dark arts, acting as His(read: SATAN) Unholy Agents on this dying, divided Earth.  Henbane is an album made of equal parts dense atmosphere and classic concepts, drawing equally from First Wave Black Metal, Second Wave Black Metal, Ross Bay Cult styled Bestial Black Metal and thundering old-school Doom Metal to create a sound which no other band can truly match.  And aided by a brilliant conceptual identity which reeks of rot, witchcraft and occultism, Henbane is the perfect mood music for late nights lost in the misty woods, dripping blood upon the altar of sacrifice and preparing one's body to entertain the ancient spirits.

Compared to Haxan, Henbane seems significantly softer at first: the production sound is cleaner, more balanced and far less dense, and the bands more Bestial elements have taken a back seat to a greater focus on riffs, introspection and mystical energies.  But once the incantations of Henbane begin to shake and rattle your very bones, you'll soon realize the massive error in judgement you had made.  Sure, it's a more approachable album than Haxan, Odd Spirituality or Spectres Over Transsylvania, but its also a more fully realized, mature and utterly devastating album than anything Cultes Des Ghoules have accomplished to date.  The atmosphere is tremendous, using a combination of spine-shattering low end, diverse arrangements, ambiance and perfectly controlled repetition to envelope the listener in a shroud from which they might never escape.  Henbane also frequently and masterfully makes use of sounds and samples to further amplify the already over-whelming atmosphere on the album, creating moments of somberness, insanity and suffering.  Whether it's the ringing of a Death Knell, the chants of withered witches or the bubbling of a rusted cauldron, the use of these classic and spooky conventions further intensifies Henbane and gives it a rather charming novelty which is impossible to deny.

Though it's still all about the riffs with Henbane.  It's got more of them than you can shake a crucifix at: thundering, Doom-y, Thrash-y, dissonant, melodic, noisy riffs which give off an equal mix of To Mega Therion, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Angelcunt(Tales of Desecration).  "The Passion of a Sorceress" drips grime and filth, and the bass and drums combine to flatten mountains: at 2:25, prepare to have your skull force-fucked by damnation right off your slender, weak spine.  Vocalist Mark of the Devil is simply inhuman as he moves from yelps, shrieks, growls and moans.  He brays at the Moon and screams like his testicles have been forcibly removed, he chokes on his own tongue and whispers ancient enchantments into your ear.  He simply dominates this album, and his ancient and desiccated style fits perfectly with the tomb-dwelling riffs.  "The Devil Intimate" becomes a truly terrifying sojourn, led through the bowels of Hades by the hand of Virgil, and slowly builds to a horrifying and frozen crescendo in the icy halls of the Ninth Circle.  Once again, Mark of the Devil pulls out every vocal trick at his disposal and acts as the most ferocious and demented barker ever, while the skull crushing riffs and horrifying organ(so fucking wicked) act as a gory and pestilential back-drop to the madness.

Awesome honestly doesn't even begin to describe what Cultes Des Ghoules have achieved with Henbane.  This album is such a fresh and fascinating take on classic Extreme Metal sounds, as well as classic Horror elements, which makes it one of the most enjoyable and charming Black Metal albums I've ever heard.  For an album which creates such an unholy and inhuman atmosphere, Henbane is also an album which, for lack of a better term, is a hell of a lot of fun.  Its an album which conjures up old fears from your childhood, an album which brings you back to the first time you head-banged to a killer riffs and an album which can appeal to all the musical complexity you desire in your advanced age.  All aspects are satisfied, and the Devil will get his due...

Rating: 10/10

Coheed and Cambria- The Afterman: Ascension(2012) and Descension(2013)

The Afterman: Ascension

The Afterman: Descension

It's been a long time coming.  Hell if feels like an eternity since I felt this tingle down my spine, this electricity in the air...this obsession.  But I can safely say this, and it's been way too long let me tell you:

Welcome home, Coheed and Cambria.  I've missed you, and I forgive you.

It felt as if the Keywork itself fell apart after Co&Ca, the purveyors behind some of the best Prog and Pop albums of the previous decade with their first 3 masterpieces Second Stage Turbine Blade, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, had dropped the bane that-should-not-be with Year of the Black Rainbow.  It was an album that was so devastatingly bad, so poorly produced and so lifeless that it drove many diehard fans of this once mighty group, myself most of all, into a pit of musical cynicism and despair.  A bit dramatic?  Certainly, but then again this is what real passion does to the person infected by it.  It leads to dizzying highs and subterranean lows, and after Year of the Black Rainbow and it's utter lack of anything, well, Coheed and Cambria in it, I was buried under miles of defeat.

So when faced with The Afterman: Ascension/Descension, I felt like a jilted lover face to face with an old, painful flame for the first time in ages.  I felt cold and angry, but also intrigued.  I had to know what they had been up to since we had been apart, I had to see if this old flame would once again feed my obsession...

Ascension/Descension in fact did satisfy me in more ways than I could have imagined.  It may not have been a complete return to the bands classic, incredibly epic Prog-Metal-Pop they had mastered, but instead a new evolution on those same genre's to produce something wholly new and exciting.  By increasing the focus on the Pop elements of the bands sound, which were completely missing from Year of the Black Rainbow, and layering the Prog and occasional Metal on top of the hook-driven sing-along compositions, Ascension/Descension felt like as though it were both a brilliant return to form and a completely new sound: familiar yet fresh.  Ascension/Descension features only a handful of songs over 5 minutes, and the epic single track yarn-spinning of earlier albums is replaced by a more accessible and textured songs which are less exhausting but even more infectious.  Led by Claudio Sanchez's unique falsetto, Ascension/Descension is like a pied piper, leading any within earshot to start dancing like an idiot and singing along like no one is listening.

Not that Ascension(album 1) doesn't have it's classic Co&Ca moments, bu they are few and far between.  "Key Entity Extraction I:  Domino the Destitute" would have felt right at home on Good Apollo I or II, with it's saga of Metallic riffs, shredding solos and orchestral trappings, not to mention those glorious sing-scream along moments specifically designed to incite a crowd.  But beyond this track(and IMO, the best one between both albums), Ascension is largely new territory for the band.  Tracks like "The Afterman" and "Subtraction" sound closer to something from Claudio's solo project The Prize Fighter Inferno, mixing Electronic music and textures with understated or acoustic guitars and soft, whispered vocals, while "Goodnight, Fair Lady" is pure no frills Pop Rock.  It's also incredibly contagious, so good luck not singing it in the grocery line.  And "Key Entity Extraction IV: Evangira the Faithful" is a truly unique beast: Blues-y, psychedelic, ominous yet beautiful, it's a far more subdued and atmospheric track that we have come to expect from Co&Ca in the past.  The rest of this album is so god damn fucking awesome, I can forgive the lone mis-step: "Key Entity Extraction II: Holly Wood the Cracked."  Imagine Coheed playing Nu-Metal, and you about get the idea... it's an atrocious, ugly, frankly stupid song which stands out like Nicolas Cage in a good movie with talented actors, and the lone pock-mark between the two albums

One simply cannot under-state the importance of one key line-up change that occurred between Year of the Black Rainbow and Ascension/Descension: the departure of drummer Chris Pennie and the return of Josh Eppard, the man behind the kit for Coheed and Cambria's first 3 albums.  Now, I am reluctant to place the blame of Year of the Black Rainbow on Pennie: Claudio writes the songs after all, and Pennie has serious chops and is a tremendous drummer.  But it doesn't seem like a coincidence that Eppards return helped make Ascension and Descension the bands best material in nearly a decade.  Eppard's performance on the kit for both albums is the highlight bar-none.  He seems to literally play the hooks, and his punch-y kick drum becomes a beloved companion throughout the entire experience.

If Ascension feels like a new Co&Ca, than Descension(album 2) will feel even more alien, yet like Ascension it still feels like a true Co&Ca album.  The Pop elements take an even stronger hold on the album, and there is a much greater emphasis on just pure Pop Rock and even more Prize Fighter Inferno-esque moments.  "Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant" is about as close as we get to the bands classic sound, featuring a more Metallic approach and an epic acoustic intro, but it's still very thick and heavy more in killer vocal hooks than head-banging moments.  "Number City" is like a brain slug: prepare to be it's host for a long, long time.  It's funky, Pop-y bubble-gum they way it should be, and Co&Ca always find a way to make even their happiest of songs feature a twinge of sadness and darkness that lets you know that the song is more substantial than sugary sweet cotton candy.  "Gravity's Union" truly stands out: for a moment, I thought I was listening to a lost track from In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3.  It has those serpentine riffs, those sudden one-off sections that never repeat but amp up the atmosphere to 11, and of course the bands patented intense bridge-section that the band has become famous for.  But like the rest of the album, it has a unique feel from any previous Co&Ca effort, with the vocal hooks taking center stage and the drums thundering and smashing about, leaving the guitars to create texture and atmosphere.

The atmosphere of Ascension/Descension is without question the greatest strength of the albums.  They may be infectiously catchy, but there is an air of sadness and despair over both of them which leaves a powerful, lasting impact on the listener.  As you sing and scream along to these tracks, you can feel the real emotional weight behind each and every track, the power of the story and of the characters who inhabit it.  Coheed and Cambria have truly bounced back in a massive way, completely blowing the lid off of low expectations and once again basking in the light of the sun.  Do either of these albums compare to the band classic album?  Nothing really does, but that is an unfair comparison.  Ascension/Descension is the kind of thing which can completely rehabilitate a bands damaged image.  Well done sirs... well fucking done.

And welcome home.

Ratings:

Ascension: 8.5/10

Descension: 9/10

Vorum- Poisoned Void(2013)

Vorum- Poisoned Void

Deja-fucking-vu.

It's 2013 and the Old School Death Metal Revival, or Aping depending on your perspective, continues full steam ahead with Vorum's Poisoned Void, a short and succinct blitzkrieg of "Old School is the only School" Death Metal.  It's an album, which as to be expected, throws a bunch of different obvious influences at you and does so with aplomb.

Everyone, pull out your check lists:

Does it have blacked, blast heavy bits of furious Death Metal ala Angelcorpse?  Check

Does it have Doom-laden, chunky riffs for skull cracking ala Autopsy or Asphyx?  Check it off.

Does it have tons of melodic solos and leads ala every Death Metal band from the late 80's and early 90s?  Check and check.

Does it have lurching tremolo picked abominations ala Incantation?  You better fucking believe Check.

Does it have vocals which sound like John Tardy or Martin Van Drunen? There's a big fucking Check there buddy.

Poisoned Void is basically text book when it comes to modern Old School Death Metal Worship, moving from influence to influence with speed and prowess, something I have to give it some credit for.  With some many of these recent worship albums feeling lazy and passionless, Poisoned Void remains highly aggressive and energetic throughout, and the bands musicianship is top notch and tight.  On a basic technical level, musicianship and production, Poisoned Void delivers the goods.

Where it simply doesn't deliver is in the song-writing department, as throughout Poisoned Void you are taunted with moments of pure, head-banging, spine snapping, furiously flailing awesome, only to be smashed back down to earth with another redundant bit of generic blasting and riffing which sounds like the same transition from song to song.  Take for example the intro to "Rabid Blood": it's fucking awesome, with some slower tempos and fantastic drumming which shows the skill that the bands talented drummer, Mikko Josefsson, is capable of.  He is one of the highlights on this record, displaying incredible speed and dexterity as well as the ability to play some very complex rhythms.  But like, well, every other song on the record, "Rabid Blood" becomes a generic, time a dozen amalgamation of various played out "old-skull" tropes that never ascend to the next level, and it feels like Josefsson's talents are being wasted here.  It's the same with "Thriving Darkness," a killer intro followed by two brilliant sections which channels early Morbid Angel in all their Ancient glory... before it too falls into a relentless rut of basic old-school stuff that just makes one yawn.  In fact, we should rename Poisoned Void to Awesome Intros, Boring Results, as this proves to be a consistent theme throughout the record.

Not to be too harsh here, for as far as blatant old school worship albums go, Poisoned Void is not bad.  Although it lacks much of the strong atmosphere of Ectovoid's Fractured in the Timeless Abyss, and it's simply devoid of that wonderful spark of creativity and originality that Execration achieved on Odes to the Occult, Poisoned Void is very furious and is guaranteed to get ones head-banging on more than one occasion.  Vorum avoid most of the major prat-falls that can make this style almost completely unlistenable: boring and pointless Funeral Doom segments are thankfully absent, and Vorum prefer to keep things short and violent, with songs rarely going over the four minute mark.  As much as elements of this album infuriate me with it's utterly generic moments, there is just enough here for it to rise above the utter shit that the Old School Death Metal Revival has produced.  It's worth a listen, but when the history of this era of Death Metal is written, Poisoned Void will be little more than a footnote in the annals of time.

Rating: 6.5/10