Sacraments of the Final Atrocity

This is just one of those albums where anything I could say would pale in comparison to the basic, primal (essential) experience of just listening to it for yourself, taking it in, letting it settle slowly into your mind, life, etc. and, accordingly, I'm not going to bother trying to fly to absurd heights (as I used to do in the past when encountering art like this) in florid, rabid descriptions and listener exhortation or absurd musical flattery. Abazagorath know they are a capable band… they've been around for quite some time now (since the summer of 1995), they have weathered changes in the scene, alterations in the movement, the decline and fall or contrasted rise of their peers… they don't need me to compliment them or smother them in undue sycophancy, I'll leave that to other magazines. However… how do I know they are a "capable" group, that they have a certain maturity of approach, patience, intent, and compositional concentration? It's all in the music - where it belongs.

What I like the most about this album is its pacing, then, its easy sense of luxuriant, unwearied (almost serene) timing, the way it just opens so slowly and spreads itself in front of you without undue haste and without (certainly) an ungraceful, awkward rush to impress you with extremity in any musical category. This is not to say it's boring music, or that it fails to impress the listener, no, it's just that in an age where every fly-by-night new black or death metal band rushes to the (not divine) gate of potential listeners' ears with some new fad or technological/technical thrill, some supposedly new innovation in motivic deliverance, musical mordancy, etc. Abazagorath are content to rest easy, relax, and just let their melodic worlds speak for them. I think this shows a certain… confidence, a reliance on the music itself, a belief in what they have created, and a willingness to let the hard work they have obviously put into these compositions serve as signifiers of their dedication to the left hand path… they have no reason to flail about in unwarranted jeremiads or bids for your attention. No, this band - at least at this point in their careers - are in it for the music alone, seemingly, and that "pure" dedication, that basic realization (of where to place their priorities) on their part has only helped them construct songs worth listening to.

Indeed it is not until the third song, "And The Skies Opened", with its strange, bouncing, punk-like opening riff (which is then translated into glorious tremolo-picked, trilling, upwards-flying black metal urgency) that we have some sense of pressure here, or some not-so-subtle hint of dark energy outstripping its purveyors (one of my favorite aspects of black metal, the eye of Our Lord being shown in this), although both the first and second songs (especially the utterly epic "Ancient Steel") convince with their compositional mastery and idiosyncratic melodic weight, their purity of design, their balance of scene-specific traditional representations and personal expression. As the album progresses it widens and deepens, expanding (as described above) to embrace so many variant offshoots of black and dark death metal melodic/compositional mini-traditions (each a potential or dead scene in itself) that it's just obvious these guys have been into this "kind" of music for a long, long time and have a great deal of experience with it, both playing and listening. It's that richness, that flexibility of potential, that ease of transition between isolated, individual compositional avenues and ideas/approaches that really marks this band as something unique - especially within the American scene - and makes them, in my opinion, worth turning to with reverence when one really wants to hear this type of music done with emotion, tact, skill, and integrity. There isn't any value in continued attempts to describe their qualities... one just has to listen to this album, words can only carry me (and the reader) so far.

"Sacraments of the Final Atrocity", then, is an instant classic… indeed it is one of the best black metal albums I have ever heard from an American band, if not the best - hands down. It is exquisitely rendered, professionally recorded and arranged, turned with a artful expert's eye and able hand, filled with absolutely beautiful melodies, fulgent, weighty words, epic, stirring themes, instrumental proficiency (listen to how well the bass is recorded and how much this instrument adds to the music), and touches upon, as I said above, almost every single microgenre of black metal with consummate, professional ease. It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of dark art.

UA

Erebus Magazine
http://erebuszine.blogspot.com

Abazagorath is something of an underappreciated band; they play pretty cool, riff-oriented USBM that isn't unique by any means, but it is a step beyond the Ezurate-style melodic norsecore that dominated the scene for a while. It has a bit more subtlety: creative rhythms, interesting riffs and song structures that aren't binary, a good grasp of melodic and atmospheric development, etc. This album in particular is weirdly benighted by the metal scene in general; I don't understand why since for all intents and purposes it's a very solid black metal album and doesn't do anything particularly wrong. Maybe it just came out at the wrong time.

On the other hand, I guess I can kind of see why people wouldn't care for it; it's not music that really comes out and grabs you. The riffs require you to pay a bit of attention to pick up on everything the guitars are doing and the melodic sequences are marginally longer than usual, so people mostly acquainted with Darkthrone probably find this to be too taxing. For the rest of the world, it should be appreciated; there's a lot of excellent, memorable riffs, a very intense vocal performance, and great, clear production that has a solid bass guitar presence while allowing all the other instruments just as much clarity. The atmosphere is pretty typically USBM; blaargh Satan, nocturnal grimnesssss, you know the deal.

It's worthwhile because it's catchy and well-composed and doesn't fail in any dimension. Production's good, playing's good, writing's good, lyrics are cheesy but kind of cool. It's a good bread and butter album for when you want to listen to 'black metal' but don't want to think of an album to put on, because really, it'll work in a pinch. Abazagorath only fails in that none of their music is striking enough to be spoken of in-depth, which gives them the appearance of mediocrity to those unfamiliar with their music. It shouldn't be that way! They do a lot of great stuff with their simple elements and black metal fans should check them out.

I picked up this not expecting much, and not getting much either. I had not heard any of their earlier releases, and I had not even heard much about them. The CD cover was boring and the names for songs were cliche and uninspiring.

But all in all, past the boring cover and the cliche names, the music itself wasn't of much quality either. I'm not going to say this is an all out shit album, it's just not really up to top notch quality.

My first complaint is the repetitive riffing. It's pretty much the same riff with very little variation... through the whole album. They make slight changes to chords once in a while, but the chords are pretty repetitive in themselves.

My second complaint is the guys vocals, they seem kind of sporadic and not really though about entrances or exits. They were also far to prevalent giving little to no break for instrumental appreciation, especially since the vocals aren't top notch themselves.

Also, I can't pinpoint any specific part in the whole album that really raises much interest, making this overall a bland album.

My final complaint is the final mixing. However, black metal bands aren't notorious for sound quality, that's not my direct complaint. It's how everything was constructed together. The instruments seem muddled together half of the time, more so thrown in there then any real thought process into where instrumental placements should be.

Overall, this album is a shoddy attempt at black metal and only worth a listen if your bored out of your mind and have nothing else worth listening to.