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| #FOR FANS OF: Black/Death, Portal |
Often it is an enriching experience to go into something totally blind and without apprehensions, opening a mind to new viewpoints and exploring a fresh style in an album. 'Matricide in the Temple of Omega' by Ævangelist is not one of those experiences. Imagine listening to Soundgarden's “Drawing Flies” for over an hour, except the obnoxious saxophone section breaking the song to pieces is the entire draw to an album replete with ten minute forays into a brash and biting bedlam as inert in justification for its existence as it is annoying in its every aspect. Where at first this chaos may be a challenge to the ear, an occasion to which one may feel he is rising in order to test his personal mettle when encountering the noisy theater of an uncompromising band, Ævangelist's attempts to hypnotize and discomfort an audience end up falling flat in its nihilistic avoidance of the Norwegian norm of obfuscating artistry with cacophonous distortion.
This is easy to notice as “The Sonance of Eternal Discord” falls to a disharmonic change from its curling initial structure that had actually captured the imagination for a slight moment. Instead, the shrill maelstrom melts its many moving parts into a derelict churn that fails to lift the hairs on a neck or curl into an ambiance as satisfying as the likes of Deathspell Omega. The lacking riffing platform from which such high-flying aggravation launches these egregiously long songs grates on you without any eventual endorphin ecstasy. Obnoxious shrieks fill the front with horns that create a wailing resonance like Arabian swells that become noise imbued into the hammering center of “Æeon Death Knell” while a distorted black metal saxophone that no one was asking for does its best to throw a listener out of this twosome's sound despite having little in the way of compelling combinations within to make the agony worth the while. Somehow that notion was lost between the likes of Bathory, Mayhem, and Emperor coming into this new breed of garish pandemonium that prefers to make meaningless meandering electronica over maleficent metal, having no inner aspect to unearth in order to reward the listener for his diligence in finding the gem shimmering beneath the compounding layers of noise.
Though the splash of blasting into the roiling soup of “Omen of the Barren Womb” is a slight section of satisfaction before denying that enjoyment its elaboration, a constant state of decay in these diminishing wails of Arabian antagonism (in spite of its staunch unbending construction) results in sterile and ineffectual musical tantrums with nary a structure worth deconstruction due to its refusal to depart from its dry driven tracks. Granted, Ævangelist's footprint bears the characteristics of avant-garde black metal, its inlaid treble helix swirling in the tempestuous storms of such a style built by deluges of destruction, but its art is simply no contender with the likes of Benighted in Sodom or any of the other profligate analogues to Matron Thorn's ambition. This example in Ævangelist is a show of how stale a single mind may become, especially in a band beginning its own internal meltdown and advertising it as publicly as possible. Yet somehow this project has had the longevity of a seven year long career consisting of six full-length albums, two splits, a live album, and a compilation. Considering how many awful ideas are incorporated into only 'Matricide in the Temple of Omega', it is clear that Ævangelist is only so prolific due to its nightmarish self-importance, recording every terrible idea that pops into its head as though it can become the next Troma Entertainment if only it can ship out as much inane content as possible. Yet like such contemporaries as Zarach 'Baal' Tharagh (thankfully silent for the past few years) and Sloth (a daily deluge of worthless garbage), this attempt to show one's brilliance by flooding an uninterested market means merely one's personal humiliation.
Where the likes of Njiqahdda's daunting discography enjoyed its noise through rushing waves that gracefully ebbed and flowed, incorporating its brashest bits between breaths of atmosphere, intelligently building and structuring its savagery, Ævangelist employs the textbook 'scare the children' technique of sharp screeches stabbing simple sounds, as though its haunting visions of Hell have been singularly cultivated from pop out scares in low budget horror flicks. This works in the raw forms of more bassy production and allowing shadows to overcome flowery treble, but in this open and sharp production such a notion stands to unravel what could be a worthwhile direction. Best saved for a generic Hollywood trailer that slows down an '80s pop song in order to make ominous the trials of the beautiful interacting with a green screen, Matron Thorn and Ascaris' attempts to shock a listener fall flat.
As the music has few personal touches and even less personality, the band seems set on making its mark in the press over concentrating on its craft. With Matron Thorn under the scrutiny of Facebook accusations and Ascaris supposedly ousted from the band, this duo seems to be as unstable as its art is uneven and disjointed. Through music that will never live up to the caliber of its scandal, 'Matricide in the Temple of Omega' seems to be the death knell of a terrible tangent in the careers of Matron Thorn and Ascaris. As public as this meltdown gets, it surely won't even get its own episode of S. V. U. to tag the joke. If this band is as good at sex as it is at making music there are sure to be many unhappy court dates to come. (Five_Nails)
This is easy to notice as “The Sonance of Eternal Discord” falls to a disharmonic change from its curling initial structure that had actually captured the imagination for a slight moment. Instead, the shrill maelstrom melts its many moving parts into a derelict churn that fails to lift the hairs on a neck or curl into an ambiance as satisfying as the likes of Deathspell Omega. The lacking riffing platform from which such high-flying aggravation launches these egregiously long songs grates on you without any eventual endorphin ecstasy. Obnoxious shrieks fill the front with horns that create a wailing resonance like Arabian swells that become noise imbued into the hammering center of “Æeon Death Knell” while a distorted black metal saxophone that no one was asking for does its best to throw a listener out of this twosome's sound despite having little in the way of compelling combinations within to make the agony worth the while. Somehow that notion was lost between the likes of Bathory, Mayhem, and Emperor coming into this new breed of garish pandemonium that prefers to make meaningless meandering electronica over maleficent metal, having no inner aspect to unearth in order to reward the listener for his diligence in finding the gem shimmering beneath the compounding layers of noise.
Though the splash of blasting into the roiling soup of “Omen of the Barren Womb” is a slight section of satisfaction before denying that enjoyment its elaboration, a constant state of decay in these diminishing wails of Arabian antagonism (in spite of its staunch unbending construction) results in sterile and ineffectual musical tantrums with nary a structure worth deconstruction due to its refusal to depart from its dry driven tracks. Granted, Ævangelist's footprint bears the characteristics of avant-garde black metal, its inlaid treble helix swirling in the tempestuous storms of such a style built by deluges of destruction, but its art is simply no contender with the likes of Benighted in Sodom or any of the other profligate analogues to Matron Thorn's ambition. This example in Ævangelist is a show of how stale a single mind may become, especially in a band beginning its own internal meltdown and advertising it as publicly as possible. Yet somehow this project has had the longevity of a seven year long career consisting of six full-length albums, two splits, a live album, and a compilation. Considering how many awful ideas are incorporated into only 'Matricide in the Temple of Omega', it is clear that Ævangelist is only so prolific due to its nightmarish self-importance, recording every terrible idea that pops into its head as though it can become the next Troma Entertainment if only it can ship out as much inane content as possible. Yet like such contemporaries as Zarach 'Baal' Tharagh (thankfully silent for the past few years) and Sloth (a daily deluge of worthless garbage), this attempt to show one's brilliance by flooding an uninterested market means merely one's personal humiliation.
Where the likes of Njiqahdda's daunting discography enjoyed its noise through rushing waves that gracefully ebbed and flowed, incorporating its brashest bits between breaths of atmosphere, intelligently building and structuring its savagery, Ævangelist employs the textbook 'scare the children' technique of sharp screeches stabbing simple sounds, as though its haunting visions of Hell have been singularly cultivated from pop out scares in low budget horror flicks. This works in the raw forms of more bassy production and allowing shadows to overcome flowery treble, but in this open and sharp production such a notion stands to unravel what could be a worthwhile direction. Best saved for a generic Hollywood trailer that slows down an '80s pop song in order to make ominous the trials of the beautiful interacting with a green screen, Matron Thorn and Ascaris' attempts to shock a listener fall flat.
As the music has few personal touches and even less personality, the band seems set on making its mark in the press over concentrating on its craft. With Matron Thorn under the scrutiny of Facebook accusations and Ascaris supposedly ousted from the band, this duo seems to be as unstable as its art is uneven and disjointed. Through music that will never live up to the caliber of its scandal, 'Matricide in the Temple of Omega' seems to be the death knell of a terrible tangent in the careers of Matron Thorn and Ascaris. As public as this meltdown gets, it surely won't even get its own episode of S. V. U. to tag the joke. If this band is as good at sex as it is at making music there are sure to be many unhappy court dates to come. (Five_Nails)
(I, Voidhanger - 2018)
Score: 40
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/matricide-in-the-temple-of-omega
Score: 40
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/matricide-in-the-temple-of-omega