This summer, Ahdistuksen Aihio Productions unleashed two new black metal releases - one being Kraken Duumvirate’s second EP and the other being Ave Maria’s major debut Chapter I, a feast on familiar ideas initiated by various religious black metal groups of late years. Ave Maria does, however, implement enough of its own touch to the whole so that Chapter I remains enough interesting throughout.
First it must be stated that Chapter I is quite well produced (yet retaining an enough raw edge) and well played black metal. There are plenty of sections in which the guitars turn into distortionless plucking menace and there’s a lot of palm-muted and semi-technical riffage. ”The Trembling Eye” crawls forth slowly to end when the first notes of ”Coitus Behind Mortal Walls” hit, a definite standout track of the bunch. On this song, the band showcases its best melody ideas, so after the song ends, nothing comes again to the level of that piece. To depict the band’s overall sound further, you may think of a vaguely rocking/thrashing black metal outfit with strong connections to orthodox black metal - in other words, Chapter I is somewhat close to Watain, I dare to claim. It’s just the vocals that are generally lower pitched.
It’s evil and ass kicking, but I guess it's something in the partial compositional stagnancy that makes Chapter I not that overwhelming after all. There are bits and pieces that sound very good, e.g. I can’t find much to complain about the well flowing melodies of ”Among Them”, but no matter how many runs I give to the album, the whole never rises to proper greatness. There’s potential and I’m hoping the band dares to use it on later works - they don’t seem to be afraid of compromising ideas within the borders of underground black metal so hopefully there will be plenty of more ’experimentation’ some time in the future. Uncreation’s Dawn fans, you’ll probably get something out of this record - I find these bands somewhat similar in their guitar melodies and vocal growls. Plus points for the thoughful lyrics that are worth reading even on their own.
First it must be stated that Chapter I is quite well produced (yet retaining an enough raw edge) and well played black metal. There are plenty of sections in which the guitars turn into distortionless plucking menace and there’s a lot of palm-muted and semi-technical riffage. ”The Trembling Eye” crawls forth slowly to end when the first notes of ”Coitus Behind Mortal Walls” hit, a definite standout track of the bunch. On this song, the band showcases its best melody ideas, so after the song ends, nothing comes again to the level of that piece. To depict the band’s overall sound further, you may think of a vaguely rocking/thrashing black metal outfit with strong connections to orthodox black metal - in other words, Chapter I is somewhat close to Watain, I dare to claim. It’s just the vocals that are generally lower pitched.
It’s evil and ass kicking, but I guess it's something in the partial compositional stagnancy that makes Chapter I not that overwhelming after all. There are bits and pieces that sound very good, e.g. I can’t find much to complain about the well flowing melodies of ”Among Them”, but no matter how many runs I give to the album, the whole never rises to proper greatness. There’s potential and I’m hoping the band dares to use it on later works - they don’t seem to be afraid of compromising ideas within the borders of underground black metal so hopefully there will be plenty of more ’experimentation’ some time in the future. Uncreation’s Dawn fans, you’ll probably get something out of this record - I find these bands somewhat similar in their guitar melodies and vocal growls. Plus points for the thoughful lyrics that are worth reading even on their own.
2.5 / 5
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