Aosoth – Ashes Of Angels (2009)

Hailing from France and making its way on to my sounds system today I find Aosoth, one of the latest signings from cult Polish based Agonia Records. This band features MkM from the legendary Antaeus and BST ex-member of Aborted. This two headed monster plays as you can expect: Black Metal.

The band’s style is somewhat old school and the music is very basic, taking a lot of elements of early 90’s Death Metal, combined with Black Metal overtones, creating a very dense and diabolical sound.

Featuring 10 tracks of blasphemous hymns, “Ashes Of Angels” is a tour-de-force album that provides plenty of double-kick fast-as-hell sections as well as more minimalistic sections that help create a very haunting atmosphere. The album’s sound is very raw, but it never sounds like it was recorded in the toilet, so this is an added bonus for all people that like raw but well recorded albums.

All music is courtesy of Mr. BST and he does a great job at being a one man show. The guitar riffing is at some points very Death Metal oriented, and then it suddenly transforms into this raw Black Metal sound. This change is very well mixed into the songs and creates a very interesting atmosphere. The drumming also changes at some points from a very minimalistic rhythmical track to a fast paced double-kick sections that we all love from Black Metal releases. Overall the music is very well done, and while basic, it creates a very solid atmosphere of bleakness and aggressiveness.

MkM vocals, as you can expect, are as hellish as ever, and the mixture of shrieks and growls is very balanced and well inserted into the music, flowing perfectly through the album. And now that the band has a live lineup we will be able to witness these sounds directly in our faces.

In general “Ashes Of Angels” is a very solid album from a band, that while not claiming to be original, creates very hellish music. This album is a very solid addition to any Black Metal fan looking for a different band to listen to.

Release: October 19th, 2009

Country: France