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'Unholy Ghost Lithurgy'

(Satanath recs/Abstruse Eerie Radiance - 2016)










MARK: 77/100




 
  This is unusual: two one-man bands share their efforts for a digipack collaboration creating 20 tracks together. Abigorum is from Russia and is an Ambient/Black/Doom project of Satanath records' owner himself, whereas USA's Cryostasium deals with Ambient and Black Metal.
It's kind of tricky or fascinating depending on the points of view to review over one hour of material especially if you haven't heard any of their previous separate stuff, but we can say that it's always pleasant to listen to somebody's capable actions trying to break more boundaries within Metal.

Voices from the otherworld and then a rapid assault with blastbeats contrasting with the slow guitar plot compose the instrumental "Monsoon Release", which was chosen to kick off the album.
Compressed and heavy sounds are the bases of the glacial Metal of "Unholy Ghosts", along with dissonant keyboards and cosmic noises making the track unique. The screams in the background are either diabolical or desperate.
Other spectral screams, this time from a grave or a morgue, mark the start of "Liturgia", a composition of Funeral Doom Metal in the vein of Skepticism where the guitar is highly distorted and minimalistic, whereas the concluding keys are morbid as ever.
A few Black Metal elements appear in "Forgotten Lines", a short track of primitive, fast, raw constituents where the screams are similar to far laments from a cursed dimension.
"Last Galaxy" is a long piece lasting almost 7 minutes beginning with painfully morbid keys that only Necrophagia's might be equal to; the rhythm later veers towards a mid-tempo dirty and swampy Black Metal pattern, in which the guitar - on occasions Black Metal on others Drone Metal - is always preponderant in comparison with the bass, while bizarre key lines make a parody of some Pop melody. The snare drum, though, refers to Scott Burns' dry old school productions and is surprisingly fit for this situation. At a certain point, it nearly seems that the two musicians are jamming or testing their equipment waiting for a new idea, while all of a sudden there's a fugue to a repetitive Black Metal riff accompanying us till the end.
"Negative Soul" has a threatening beginning before growing Progressive Black Metal thanks to pulsating drumming, and bass strokes under Steve Di Giorgio's influence. The keyboards are horrorific, and the bell tolls from the symth don't promise anything good, while the sulphurean guitars get to riff alone until the conclusion.
After the simple low-fi Black 'n' Rolling Metal riff delivered by "Frozen Perspectives", we hit even deeper low-fi levels when our CD player plays "Spruce And Cedarwood", which sounds like an instrumental Black Metal excerpt drawn from an obscure 80s demotape.
With "Systematic Apocalypse" sick keyboards reminding several Lucio Fulci's flicks are matched with demonic vocals alà "Evil Dead" and drum programming. The Black Metal in the background is interrupted a good number of times as if the composers meant to emphasize diabolical intrusions during the recording. As scary and ingeneous as fuck, a must for horror lovers, trust me!
Differently from the previous, "Monsoon Dreams" enjoys clean sounds, still being instrumental Black Metal enriched by malevolent keyboards touches as an accompaniment.






 




 


"Essential Death" turns out to be the longer opus featured in this CD. It utilizes obsessive bass lines, keeping drums in the limelight, and adding ghosts' whispers as well as beggings towards an unknown reciver to die; finally, frightening sounds are tacked on the Black Thrash Metal tissue. You will really feel like being thrown into a state of exaggerated anxiety and discomfort; you will surely feel lots of fatigue to stand all of that sadistic chaos and insanity until the final. If objects start moving by themselves or other strange unexplained events will occur in your place, don't be surprised!
The slowing down makes your blood freeze and the guitar weaves inhuman rhythmic changes until the keyboards close everything as if you were Alice in Wonderland on acid in hell.
"Santalum" is again fast Black Metal including incomprehensible vocals and noises somewhat similar to the distorted, feeble jammed ones sent from a space base to earth. Only in the last seconds does the guitar become slower but that's just for a short while before the ultimate acceleration.
I've been trying to define "Realization Of Regress" many times without success, yet today it happens to be framed into a category finally: it is a mongrel between Sunn O ))), Scorn and a Satanic mass tune.
Unexpectedly, "Reflexes Program" makes me think of some mid-90s Napalm Death Industrial remix, to then turn into a sort of Industrial Black Metal with disturbed voices recurring to a main riff sucking everything into its vortex like a black hole does. It's worth emphasizing that the drums seem human and not programmed and also that the finalè is cut and that leaves us unsatisfied.
"The Quiet Room" is Marduk-like together with terrifying vocals, very rapid beats and bass thumping. All of this creates paroxysm going well beyond Naked City and Painkiller put together.
The Black Metal of "Infinite Colonization" uses fatter sounds, keys from a funeral march accelerated so that they're even bantering the Grim Reaper. The general feeling is the one of being engulfed by an invisible layer of negativity as black as pitch and as demented as a madhouse ward. Awesome is the end with lugubrious keys, unfortunately once again abruptly interrupted. It is a pity that the editing hasn't been taken care of properly and this is the second time that a song has been ruined in this unprofessional way.
"Mysore's Cocoon" comes across as another chip of unpolished Black Metal awash in possessed shrieks not so distant from the above-cited "Spruce And Cedarwood", whereas "Bioengineering Collapse" comprises 5 minutes of Noise alternated with freezing harsh Black Metal sometimes Progressive, where the keys go solo when their goal isn't scaring the shit out of your pants. The guitar produces a vast array of riffs all of the time (tribal, Nu Metal, Black Metal), while the vocals are absent, replaceed by menacing metallic breaths.
First "None", a CME's cover, is Black Metal employing an almost harmless guitar, with that it ends up coming to be a nightmare when different types of hell incarnate vocals appear in all of their lust and wickedness. It is also very interesting to notice that this track later shows screams/growls close to Cryptopsy's Lord Worm, which are subject to vocal effects in the last seconds.
Without any silence pause begins "Outro", a really brief musical creation, which is simply based upon vampiric keys and contains just two cymbal strokes.

This is not an album meant to be heard in the background, nor is it an attack Black metal one, although ferocious minutes of that are present, too. Indeed, these experimental and often strange 69 minutes were conceived to destabilize, scare and give you an insane sense of satisfaction you wouldn't expect from yourselves, just like the dreadful beastly artwork hints.
For those who will be able to understand it, this album will be deemed a symbiotic masterpiece from two geniuses.

 


  MARKUS GANZHERRLICH - 30 Dec., 2019
 















(Cryostasium)










(Abigorum)











Tracklist:

  1. Monsoon Release
  2. Unholy Ghosts
  3. Liturgia
  4. Forgotten Lines
  5. Last Galaxy
  6. Negative Soul
  7. Frozen Perspectives
  8. Spruce And Cedarwood
  9. Systematic Apocalypse
  10. Monsoon Dreams
  11. Essential Death
  12. Santalum
  13. Realization Of Regress
  14. Reflexes Program
  15. The Quiet Room
  16. Infinite Colonization
  17. Mysore's Cocoon
  18. Bioengineering Collapse
  19. None [cover CME]
  20. Outro






Discography in common:
-Unholy Ghost Lithurgy (CD - 2016)




Line-up on this record:
Cryostasium: Cody Maillet, all instruments, v. (also in Bone Ritual, Goat Felch, Gonkulator (live), ex-Cyhyreath, Blood Soil, CTM, Zaklanie, ex-Witch Tomb, ex-Evisceration, ex-Volkszorn)
Abigorum: Alexey Korolyov, all instruments, v. (also in Taiga, Satanath)


Contacts:
Cryostasium: Boston, MA - USA
Abigorum: Saint Petersburg - Russia
E-mail:




Official sites:
https://www.facebook.com/cryostasium333/
https://www.facebook.com/abigorum