Akercocke! definatly one of the bigger names on the British scene at the moment, but sadly under-rated by alot of people. Akercocke are an excellent mix of death metal and black metal, probably the best mix I have ever heard of the two genres.
The vocals are absolutely brutal, the death metal growls are more like huge rumbles of thunder, and the black metal shrills are really blood curdling. The guitars are very good, very tight, nice and fast the way we like it. They have quite a muddy tone but are incredibley heavy, the muddiness just adds to the atmosphere, it makes it all sound more from satan himself. The bass is unusually audable for death metal, which isnt a bad thing, you can really hear it with the guitars, it has a nice sharp rickenbacker tone too. Last but certainly not the least, THE DRUMS! The drums on this record are incredlible! David Grey certainly shines on this record are one of the better death metal drummers around. He weaves in and out of blistering fast blast beats to fast but atmospheric intricate beats.
Alas the album has downpoints that stop it being a five. This is namely some of the black metal parts unfortunatly, some of them when put next to a death metal part loose impact. There are also some filler tracks on this album that really annoy me because they are just boring.
Track by Track synopsis.
1. There is a 2 minute intro to this track, its rather funny, I think its a woman getting sacraficed in the name of satan. It gets boring after the second time you play the album through unfortunatly. The track comes in blistering blast beats, black metal scream, but then it switches to atmnospheric drumming and clean guitar with ease. The death metal comes in at about 4 minutes, this is the first time you hear Jasons thunderous growl, and its definatly worth the wait. Not suprisingly the only word I can make out on this album is "SATAN!". Just as you think this track is finished, theres a drum fill, muddy guitars (which sound awsome) and some nice fast riffing followed by an ample helping of guitar solo.
2. This is what I was talking about earlier with annoying fillers, not only do we have a 2 minute album intro but now theres a track which just goes nowhere, it is based around far eastern instruments, I suppose its quite kool, but it ruins the feel of the next song.
3. Here we are, back to the band, this next track is the radio friendly track, its completely different to the first teack, but dont let that fool you its still very good. Here is the first time we here Jasons singing voice, its very good and very gothic. Reminiscent of sisters of mercy and bauhus for sure. The distorted riff in this song is really cool, it makes nice use of harmonics, I usually associate distorted harmonics with nu-metal and Dream Theater but these are definatly better. Again the drums in this track are awsome, theres some nice cymbol work. There is abit in the middle of this song with harsh vocals which is cut on the video version, this really annoyed me. This song has an excellent outro, its about 3 minutes long but its very powerful.
4. Back to real metal. This is the first track where we are exposed to lots of death metal growls. The chorus is what lets this song down, the rythm of it is rather bland. Again the drums on this track are relentless even whern there is atmospheric parts they are still blasting away. This track has a really good outro, this is where you can really here that rickenbacker bass tone, it sounds awsome.
5. Another filler, this one is worse then the filler on track 3, really boring, let down for an album title song.
6. Starts off with a nice minor harmonic guitar riff, really taking advantage of the eastern feel. Nice vocals too. Tense build up. Then what happens....oh dear....A horrible three chord sustain thing, nasty, nasty, nasty drum beat, this is what I ment when I said some black metal parts bring it down, infact this is probably the only time this happens to this extent. Then it breaks into pretty boring mid paced metal, un rememberable guitar solo, then back into mid paced metal. It doesnt really come back up to standard until the last minute or two.
7. Nice atmospheric intro. Straight into killer brutal death metal, this is the Akercocke I remember despite the last track. There is some very nice drum beats in this song. About half way through the song there is a drum fill and it breaks into some of the best symphonic black metal on the album, definatly kool, nice vocals on this part too. The solo section is nice in this song too, everything slows down to really exentuate the guitar solo.
8. Another one of those filler tracks. This one is better then the last too, its got some scarey sounds in it.
9. Nice intro reminiscent of slayer. Straight into death metal, awsome vocals once again. Funny by this song you begin to realise how mmuch the vocals are about Satan, I think Satan has been mentioned in like every song. Theres a really dark slow doom bit in the middle of this song, lots of feedback, it sounds incredible, the vocals keep it all driving into a fast Artificial harmonic riff, the bass work during this riff is good too, as far as plectrum players go. The solo in this track is another let down on the album, theres a tapping part that is metallica - one, its a complete rip off, no doubt about it no band should be allowed to get away with a rip off that obvious.
10. I really like this track, clean vocals and synth intro. This reminds me of goth/disco for sure. I like the way this song goes from the intro into the faster paced metal. A guitar plays a really awsome chord sequence for a couple of bars, drum fill, into speedy drums.
11. Intro sounds abit like Enraptured by Evil. This song has another really grand symphonic black metal part, its probably one of my favorite parts of the album, it switches between symphonic to death in a blink of an eye and with ease, thats what I like about this album.
12. Another filler track, not too bad this time though because there are some clean vocals, and Jason can really sing.
Well there it is, my lengthy review on the latest akercocke have to offer us. Its definatly worth checking out, there are some really poor parts of the album but as a whole its worth checking out.
