I first heard about this band while reading a recommendation list on more recent black metal that the author considered fresh and unique in a sea of bland, third rate clone bands trying to accomplish what has been done a million times. That caught my attention, since I had just spent an hour wading through the sea of mindless poseurs trying to be more "kvlt" than their friends commonly known as myspace.com.
The first thing that I noticed about this was the absence of any sort of white noise or static. There was some concious effort put into making this album sound clear and getting the instrument levels right. I have always maintained the opinion that the harsh, grating production of most black metal is essential to the overall feel and sound of an album. With such negative emotions, why not have the production to match it? This, however, seems to work out well. I think it would benifit from a layer of fuzz though.
One thing that kind of disappointed me was the guitar parts. I was hoping for something quite unique and memorable, and got what I can best describe as "slightly above average, at best". While the melodies are a bit more complex and stray from the droning 3-note riff idea, they're still basic tremelo picked black metal riffs for the most part. Nothing extremely memorable, as I had hoped, but there are still some interesting ideas and unique melodies.
Various songs on here contain an ambient soundscape part/intro in contrast to the harsh music, in order to enhance the "harsh" effect. This is no new idea, and it really doesn't work too well for this particular band. A very good example of this technique being effective is Blut Aus Nord, where the ambient soundscape is suddenly pierced by static and treble filled swirling guitar riffs. This album could do without these soundscapes, though. They are not very interesting and they really do nothing for the song. If you listen to this often you'll probably find yourself fast forwarding through these.
One pleasant suprise on this album was the vocals. They are well executed and consistant. There are some clean vocals passages, but nothing spectacular. On "Above the Firmaments of Wrath" there is a clean vocal section that doesn't fit in at all and detracts from the flow of the song, in my opinion. Since the vocals are clear in the mix and easy to understand you find yourself paying more attention to the lyrics, since you can actually hear them. The lyrics on this album are anti-christian, but in a unique way. You won't be hearing blasphemies vomited forth in the vein of "I VOMIT ON THE SOONNNN OF GOOODDD!" but rather a thoughtful story being told.
The songs on here are fairly long with the shortest about 6.5 minutes and the longest well over 13. If you like what you hear, this is a good thing, but if you're not, you won't find yourself listening to very much of this.
If you listen closely, you'll notice that the drums are programmed. While there obviously isn't the depth and dynamics of a human drummer, they're well programmed and aren't constant blast beats with an extremely processed and false sound like many bands seem to have. I don't think this album suffers much from lack of real drums. The drum machine sound kind of fits the clear production and playing.
In conclusion, this was unique, but not quite in the way I had hoped for. There were more interesting/complex melodies, clearer production, and nice vocals, but that's not really what I look for in black metal. I'm a fan of the really raw stuff, and if I want great vocals there are plenty of bands that do it better than Averse Sefira. However, this would be a good album for those who always find themselves wishing they could hear what is going on behind what they precieve as an incessant wall of static.
