Artist: Azzagrat
Title: Kaikuja Kuilusta
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Under The Dark Soil
Sometimes after all the atmospheric black metal and progressive stuff what you really need is an utterly wild who-gives-a-shit attack. Enter Azzargrat from Finland with their opening half hour of feral atrocity. Originally released last year this was recently put out on cassette by Under The Dark Soil so I thought I’d take a listen.
What struck me on initially listening to opener ‘Syvyyksien Laulu’ was the raw sounding guitar, the almost black n roll bounce and the weird cold melody that suddenly twisted into a maelstrom of bludgeon and slashing black metal. The vocals are sharp and bitter howls but lurking beneath the cacophony is a haunting melody that eventually comes to the fore. I don’t mean soft and dark; this is still raw as anything but it has a sinuous shape beneath the raging clouds.
Kinda perfect for me….
‘Kuilun Äärellä’ just thumps you in the face. The rhythm sounds as though its held together by gaffa tape and the guitar strings loose enough to tie a bow in them but there is just something about this. From a ball of falling apart chaos that shape comes once more and quite aside from a fantastic riff you realise that Azzagrat can wield chaos like a morning star. The mid to late section surges forward, dragging debri as it goes but wielding and incredible half buried melody too. There is intent here and it is FIERCE.
‘Yön Lapsi’ keeps up the pace and the attack. There’s a little punk in amngst this raw black metal, just in the style here and there, the just do it feel to the riffing but it never wavers from its black metal spine.
‘Hiljaisuuden Kruunu’ actually slows things down a little. Not much but enough for the absolute battery from the drumming to knock down a few walls. ‘Jäätynyt Metsä Huokaa’ comes in with a weird, disorienting riff; it seems to peel off into some truly dark place with a keening sound that sounds like some industrial scree transferred to guitar and played by a demon high on torture. It’s gorgeous and horrible and the slow section just makes it worse as you know its coming back. Maybe I’m weird but this is just awesome…Front row seat to a derelict tenement in Hell.
The title track closes this short album. ‘Kaikuja Kuilusta’ begins slow as a crawling nightmare, the melody high but the buzzing distortion ever present. The distortion on this whole album is superb and when it takes hold as it does as the song really begins to crank the pressure until it breaks my brain, the album stills and I kind of wonder what happened.
This is honestly an excellent and shockingly layered howl of raw black metal. The rhythms shift and shake, the melody haunts the deepest reagions of their sound but surface unexpectedly and the instensity doesn’t let up for a moment.
I really hope they are working on new music as this is an excellent beginning.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 