Neo-barbaric black magick ritual forni-desecration – 79%
Pestbesmittad, November 4th, 2007
Impiety’s debut album is an interesting mixture of old school black/death metal and Nordic black metal. The Nordic black metal influence can be heard in the high’n’shrieky vocals and the production, which is raw in the vein of early 90s Nordic black metal releases, while the music itself is still in the old school black/death metal vein, just like on the band’s previous releases. As I already said, the vocals on this album are done in a black metal style. This is a change from the demo and the EP, on which the vocals were done in a growly style. According to the band themselves, they perform neo-barbaric black magick ritual forni-desecration musick on “Asateerul Awaleen” and looking at the song titles, I can only agree. Too bad the lyrics aren’t included (at least not on the Agonia version of the CD), I’d have loved to read the lyrics to a song called “Anal Madonna”!
The main reason for the raw feel of the music on this album is the guitar sound. However, the guitar sound is pretty thin but thankfully the Gehennic bassbaptisms courtesy of Leprophiliac Rex are loud in the mix, so the music has bottom end to it. I still would’ve preferred the guitars a bit louder in the mix though. I’ve read in an interview that the band weren’t satisfied with the production on this album, as they were trying to get a sound that would have been more like the one on “Salve The Goat: Iblis Exelsi”. I myself am quite fine with the production here though.
The album starts with “Intromancy: Dzuul Ar’Shil Jaheem”, a pompous classical piece including a choir. Then “Anal Madonna” begins a blasphemous musical onslaught that will not cease until the last note of “Blasphemy… The Seventh Goatspawn” has faded. On previous releases Impiety never really experimented with their music but on “Asateerul Awaleen” a few new things are brought in. For example, synth is used at times. The synth sound is a choir effect and it’s much too loud in the mix, which makes it dominate the music and sort of push everything else aside when it’s used. This choir effect also sounds somewhat artificial which puts a damper on things. “Hymnvocation of Nazarethian Nunwhores” is the only track where I think the synths sound good and actually manage to create a dark atmosphere. Another new thing is… acoustic guitars! Haha, now I suppose some of you just shat your pants? Don’t worry though, the acoustic guitars only appear on “Divine Hutamahan Frostfuck” where they add an almost “folky” feel to the parts where they are used. This may sound unbelievable but you’ll just have to hear it for yourselves.
A third new thing Impiety introduce on “Asateerul Awaleen” are gongs. This is of course in line with the band’s Eastern origins but I never thought of using gongs in underground metal. The gongs appear on “Divine Hutamahan Frostfuck”, “Magick-Consecration Goatsodomy” and “Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration”. “Magick-Consecration Goatsodomy” is a re-recording of one of the tracks from the “Salve the Goat: Iblis Exelsi” EP. “Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration” is a re-recording of the title track of the band’s demo. This version is easier to follow than the demo version due to the better production. They’ve also added synths to the end of the song. The gongs sound pretty cool actually and at the end of the day prove to be a nice addition.
“Bismishaithan” is the track on which the synths are used most and here I get really irritated at how high in the mix they are. “Blasphemy… The Seventh Goatspawn” is another re-recorded demo track but they haven’t added any gongs or synths to this version. I don’t know why they chose to re-record this particular track since it’s short, pretty chaotic and doesn’t have much substance. Re-recording any other demo track would have been a better move. Or why not just write some new tracks and include them instead? You see folks, the biggest criticism for me on this album is the lack of new material. Out of a total of eight tracks one is an intro and three are re-recorded tracks from previous releases. Add to this the fact that the playing time of the album is just under forty minutes. Under these circumstances I think re-recording as much as three old tracks is uncalled for and I took off some points for this. It would have been better if the band had waited until they had enough new material to fill up an entire album.
“Asateerul Awaleen” doesn’t offer much new stuff for those who already possess the demo and the EP. On the other hand the different production, different vocals and the use of gongs and synths ensure that the re-recorded tracks don’t sound identical to the previous versions. Overall this is a competent debut which can be seen as a round-up of the band’s early days. Yet for me there are some annoying factors, such as the synths and the number of re-recorded tracks.
rafazardly 