One of the most ground-breaking bands of the current Black Metal movement has strike again. This time in the form of a two way split attack, joining forces with Australians ORDER OF ORIAS.
After their last two albums, AOSOTH have reached a level of toxicity that takes many of their followers to inject every new release as part of their daily intoxication. Like many, we’ve consumed this new delivery immediately after it arrived to our hands, and their effects have now stabilized enough to let us write about it. “Appendix B” is once again a mind-blowing song, with those dissonant scary riffs leading the demented harsh voice to rise from the bottom of the well, at the same rhythm that the drums kit elevates your mind to the level where it becomes nothing more than a devotion statement. The several dragged minutes in the last part of the track are so proliferous in what regards the wrapped guitar work, that make you head spin around over and over. The continuation, already at a faster pace, doesn’t help to stop it. So you are faced with only two options: to give up and return to your normal world; or to embark on this journey and embrace the darker form of your own being. As usual, we chose the second path. The path to illumination.
The Frenchman dissonance is then followed by ORDER OF ORIAS monolithic kicks, in a continuous drum kicking exhibition that impressed us since the first listening. But there’s more. The guitars keep up at a fast pace, creating a real vibrant dynamic and even entering some more technical fields, with some variations that could remind us of bands such as Enthroned. So there’s not just speed here. Some slow tempos are also present throughout “Ruinous Hope”, being that shadowed force precisely the one that turns off the light of this work. A pretty intense first contact with Order of Orias Black/Doom noise.
Pay also attention to the impressive artwork that comes with this Split.
8/10
