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Averse Sefira > Homecoming's March > Reviews
Averse Sefira - Homecoming's March

Good debut from an excellent band - 87%

Cynical, June 4th, 2004

Tired of all the black metal bands which are nothing more than pointless blasting? Averse Sefira is the band you’re looking for. And while this album isn’t as good as their next, it is still a very worthwhile offering.

Hailing from Texas, this duo (this album used a drum machine) creates some epic thrash-inspired black metal. And the highlight of this album is the riffing. Thrashy, melodic riffing permeates this album- not melodic as in “gothenburg”, but melodic as in heavy riffs that aren’t just one note repeated. The riffing actually reminds me a bit of Massacra’s “Enjoy the Violence”, although it’s slightly less chaotic, and the riffs themselves are a bit longer.

The songs tend to be fairly long (the average song length is about nine minutes), and aren’t typical verse-chorus song structure, thankfully. However, don’t expect Opeth style meandering here. The songs definitely do head to a point, and there are repeated sections, although, as noted above, not in verse-chorus fashion. However, here is the album’s main flaw- often times, riffs repeat just a bit too much. Not a huge flaw, but one of those minor things that stops an album from being a classic.

The vocals are, for the most part, quite good. Sanguine’s shrieks are excellent. However, the clean vocals in “Above the Firmaments of Wrath” sound perhaps just a bit off. They actually have a bit of a pop-punk vibe, which doesn’t exactly fit with the album.

While the drumming is machine-produced, it doesn’t suffer much for it. The band did a good job programming the drumming machine to not sound like a simple “rock 1” or “rock 2” setting. And while a machine will never have the same sense of dynamics a human drummer will, the album doesn’t suffer much for it.

A word about production- expect nothing like a standard black metal “this is kvlt because it’s terribly produced” production. Everything here is very clear, and the guitar has a reasonably full tone. Once again, a good comparison is Massacra’s “Enjoy the Violence”- the production is quite similar, although the drums on the Averse Sefira album are possibly a bit higher in the mix.

Another cool feature here is the intros/interludes of the songs- the “Aversions” as the band calls them. They feature some of the most unearthly sounds I’ve ever heard… I can’t really describe them beyond that. Download a couple of the songs to hear what I’m talking about.

Also of note are the lyrics. Rather than being the typical “spill blood, defile Christ, hail Satan!!!,” they are an intelligent allegory of the fall of Christianity, told from various points of view from characters within the story.

While not of classic status, this album is definitely one of the most worthwhile post ’96 albums in black metal.

A note- on the Evil Horde re-release, the tracklisting is a bit different- “Hymns to the Scourge of Heaven”, “For We Have Always Been”, “Pax Dei”, “Above the Firmaments of Wrath”, and “Ad Infinitum” have been broken up into two parts- their intro and their main song. The final song, “Homecoming’s March”, has been broken up into three- the intro, and at about the half-way point into the main song. Thus, the tracklisting for the EH re-release is:
1-2- Hymns to the Scourge of Heaven
3-4- For We Have Always Been
5-Sentinel’s Plight
6-7-Pax Dei
8-9-Above the Firmaments of Wrath
10-11-Ad Infinitum
12-14- Homecoming’s March