Tenebrarum Cadent Exsurgemus

"Thee I invoke..."

This album is absolutely fantastic - pure brilliance in melodic semi-raw Black Metal. It's atmospheric, emotional and pretty damn evil sounding - what more could you want?

Compared to their latest release (Sacraments of the Final Atrocity) this album is mostly mid-paced Black Metal, with moments of thrash driven speed. The production is fairly clear for this style of Black Metal, and you may notice some production errors/flaws that actually make this album more unique (badly timed fade in/out of guitars etc;) and interesting to listen to. The guitarist for this "era" of Abazagorath, "Cythrall", unfortunately left and sadly hasn't done anything music-related in the last 5-8 years or so which is a pity, as there is a definate "sound" he achieves. (Not to dismiss Morgul as a musician, or anything.) The songs are catchy - the sort of Black Metal that would be interesting to watch live.

"Mightiest of Massacre.."

There is a nice amount of keyboards used in the album, not to the point of overbearing on the guitar and vocal work. The vocals themselves are well done, the guitars (as mentioned before) brilliant, but the drum production somewhat erratic (snares louder on certain tracks etc;) There are 6 instrumentals (chants, atmospheric keyboard tracks, and a song that only has one vocal line at the end, which is just a "rahhhh" sound anyway :) ) - the album itself only goes a little over 40 minutes, so I guess if you don't like "filler" you won't like this (though I wouldn't call them filler, as they are significant to the overall sound in their own right)

If you like raw, melodic Black Metal then I highly recommend this album to you..

Standout tracks; The Chaos that Crawls Beyond The Stars, Les Fleurs Da Mal, Rites of The Black Herald.