Antichrist

There we have it. Another band progressing into a modern and handsome sound. The sound practically all metalheads hate. Still, it’s Akercocke we’re talking about, so it will take some more time until the songs can be enjoyable to br00tal deathcore kids. Instead of that, thank god politely, this album can’t decide whether it wants to be scary progressive stuff or brutal death metal. About half of this album is made out of techniques rarely heard of to pleasure the listener, while the other half rages through without finding a crap about originality. Both of these half’s put out a decent job of it.

There is the scarier half. It consists of the first half of the CD with the exception of Summon the Antichrist, a rather american sounding song. Black Messiah and Distant Fires Reflect the Eyes of Satan are the usual Akercoke interludes, the latter having a very atmospheric and gloomy presence. Black Messiah on the other hand kind of sucks, it's by far not as atmospheric as Distant Fires Reflect the Eyes of Satan. Then there is this weird track called The Promise. Also more atmospheric than the usual song, but now with guitars and drums. It seems Akercocke didn’t know what to do with it, as the length is of a short Akercocke song. It is probably meant as a full track, but I can’t feel it other than an interlude track. Not that it matters anyway as it is clearly the worst track on here.

Now come the two songs that resemble Choronzon and Word/Deeds most, which are both also the best tracks on here. Axiom and My Apterous Angel. The first is a good combination of sick death metal’s pummelling rage and evil progressive black metal. Typically Akercocke. There are some spoken words in it, some great riffs and most noticeably: the verse which consists of acoustic guitars and blast beats. It sounds fucking fantastic, and even more with the awesome vocals of Jason. My Apterous Angel is something Akercocke hasn’t done earlier. It’s a song, but on the way Akercocke write their interludes. There is a lot of sound effects, as well as background noises. There are many riffs, not as heavy as others, but definitely more scary.

Now onto the other half, the standard death metal half. Speaking of standard, it’s still Akercocke, whatever they do still sounds different to what any band does. It’s just that there isn’t really a lot of progressive input, which isn’t very bad actually. Man without Faith or Trust is the only truly good song on here, but Summon the Antichrist, The Dark Inside and Footsteps Resound in an Empty Chapel aren’t bad either. The problem with these song are that there is a lack of memorable parts. Man without Faith or Trust isn’t memorable at all, but it shouldn’t be and doesn’t need to be as it’s just over 3 minutes long. The other songs on the other hand are around the 5 minutes, and aside of the awesome clean vocal part of The Dark Inside, there isn’t really much to memorize. It’s all not progressive enough to get that feeling that Akercocke can create. The feeling of: holy shit what just happened??? Was I listening to a band??? Am I dead??? Is this hell???

The works before this album sounded unnatural enough to make people think like that. Now with Antichrist they don’t do that anymore. That’s sad, especially after delivering two truly impressive masterpieces. Maybe they put all their songwriting thoughts into Words/Deeds (which really shows as Words/Deeds was practically perfect, if it wasn’t for the slightly degrading The Penance) and crashed. Or they decided that they want a bigger fanbase, which they truly deserve. Whatever happens, I know that this album made Akercocke a whole lot popular. And that, as a big fan, I can only applaud.

Edit:

I decided to higher the score, from an 76 to a 81. This is all thanks to The Dark Inside. I've grown very fond of the clean vocal part in the middle. And to say it has potention to be legendary is not that stupid. The heavier parts of the song are great too, but it's really the bridge that convinced me to higher the overall score.