Nautilus

This CD was a bit of a surprise because I had never heard about this band before and this is actually surprisingly good! Azagatel play a sort of modern Black Metal, with a lot of melody and keyboard parts together with very fast and heavy parts. They play well, the vocalist is really good, the sound quality is also very good, and I can’t help but to think that the amateurish cover, photos, and general presentation are misleading as to the quality of this CD. Not everything is perfect, sometimes I think they overdo the keyboards a bit and that the production needs some extra punch (because this kind of music requires a very powerful sound), but all complaints are really very minor in the face of a virtually unknown band having such great material nevertheless!
The CD’s concept is focused mainly on the water and the oceans (and also elves and Tolkien) and it also includes a great cover of Tormentor’s ‘Elizabeth Bathory’. Finally I have to mention that the lyrics to the opening track are all adapted from Bathory’s ‘Hammerheart’ album for some reason.

Nowadays, more and more bands prefer to spent some extra money and see their music/work circulating on the (underground) scene, than to wait for a milionaire deal with an obscure label. This kind of behaviour denotes some will by the members of the band and reinforces them as entity for future commitements; AZAGATEL must be included in this group… The band emerged in our scene some years ago (precisely in 1995), in the midst of the Black Age. Several line-up changes gradually reinforced the spirit of the band, leading to the recording and release of their debut (and also self-financed) demo, "The Middle Earth" in 1999. Never stopping to create music, the band emerged again in 2001 with this fine delivery of Metal symphonies called "Nautilus". Sure thing is that the musical style delivered by AZAGATEL is not innovating but, nevertheless, the band manages to create some fine tunes and melodies. Lyrically and conceptually, this debut album surrounds the water element ('Atlantis Descedent', 'Albatroz', 'Nautilus', 'Water World' and 'Come By Water') but touches other ideas such as the Tolkien universe ('Isengard Son'). A cover of TORMENTOR ('Elisabeth Bathory') is also included in this release. this album shows a good maturation of the music structure, ranging from the Black Metal style to a more technical deathish sonority, heavily complemented with keyboards; one point that must be stressed out is that AZAGATEL managed to recreate what I like to call as the 'Portuguese Death Metal Sound', only found in our boundaries. My highlight goes to 'For A Piece Of Heaven', which takes me some years back to INHUMAN, HEAVENWOOD and DESIRE debut releases. To all instrumental lovers, 'Come By Water' is the perfect track for you, synthetized as written in the books and majestically performed. Tech-metal intro can be found in the 'Elisabeht Bathory' cover, although heavily raw and very old-school (a must for the fans of this kind of sound!). Then comes 'I Wanna Die', that I understood as the this-one-is-for-us-all-guys track, a very surrealistic song featuring some nice reverse effects. What's left to say? GIMME MORE!!!!...