De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis

First of all, I'll get the album's title out of the way: it's derived from two different source books, one by Michael Raufft published in 1728 and the other by Philip Rehrius published in 1679, that famous American horror writer H P Lovecraft consulted for his Cthulhu mythos and means "On the Eating of the Dead in the Tomb". This is not referring to live people eating corpses but rather to dead people feeding on anything at hand in the tomb, even their own flesh and entrails. YECCHH! The cover art pales in comparison when it comes to repulsiveness so maybe we had better move on to the album, yes?

The album plays like a soundtrack to an unspeakably horrific horror film with its own dialogue, sound effects, music and more besides. All that's needed is the visuals; even the idea for the plot is supplied by the recording. Found sound recordings and synthesiser or digitally created effects play an important role in establishing the album's mood and its atmosphere, and put the listener in the right frame of fear before the music even starts: highly unusual in most genres of music, let alone ambient blackened death metal. Thereafter once the music gets going, it drags the listener on a ride straight into the deepest parts of Hell: drums pummel and guitars roar continuously. Aevangelist's sound has a crisp and crunchy edge which is not too sharp but just soft enough to give an impression of guitars melting into thick hot noise lava that flows with the juddering percussion. As the album progresses, the music changes from clunky and over-bearing in its first half to something more flowing and efficient in its delivery, allowing an inhuman machine-like element with alien reptiloid DNA to emerge.

The vocals suit this kind of grimy, encrusted swamp death metal: gloopy, swamp-reptile tones that swallow much of the lyrics, throaty groans and growls, all with echo added to give an ice-cold effect to the singing.

Most songs are fast and feature a few riffs that are repeated over and over to mind-numbing effect while guitar feedback, effects and malevolent atmosphere combine to hypnotise the listener. Some songs like "Death Illumination" remind me a little of Deathspell Omega in their technical layered complexity, cold dark and airy space, and the guitar's occasional tendency to go off on a limb and play a riff loop at high pitch - although Aevangelist most likely had blackened death metal bands like Portal as their inspiration. There is plenty of atmospheric synthesiser melody to flavour the music and give it a three-dimensional sculpted sound. Rhythm guitars sound like an army rather than a couple of guys playing together.

Surprisingly, the best track on the album isn't a black / death metal one featuring guitar as its main instrument: it's actually dominated by drums, guitar feedback, digital effects and synthesised choir. "Hierophant Disposal Facility" is a lumbering instrumental giant of hulking feedback crunch and grind, treated percussion, washes of ghost choir and the occasional vocal grunt. It lurches about the joint like an overgrown Cyclops that's just lost its eye, stumbling through the darkness.

The album can be an exhausting experience and possibly a few tracks here and there could have been edited for length. The music is solid and layered, and there is plenty of energy, all focussed on creating a huge universe of unimaginable darkness and malevolence. Whoever is brave enough to create the film to match this filthy hellish music, I wish that person well indeed.