Choronzon

Album after album, perfecting your own unique style and cyclically expanding the group of fans - this is how you can, more or less, sum up the first years of Akercocke's activity. Such diligence must have been impressive, considering that right after the release of "The Goat Of Mendes", which was close to perfect, Jason Mendonça's band started working on album no. 3 and decided to record something similarly phenomenal on such a level. It's known that even at that times Akercocke's style required openness on the part of the listener, but the originality, coherent concept and consistency of these guys could not be denied. Well, the band itself had a quite reasonable promotion, which it came into some commercial successes. As you can easily guess, the third lp of Akercocke entitled "Choronzon" was released in 2003 and was again a really good record.

This is where one of the (biggest) hits in the group's discography comes from, the presence of which at Akercocke concerts is almost obligatory. I mean, "Leviathan", of course. This track is distinguished by a very song-like, two-voice verse, an intriguingly disturbing atmosphere in the chorus, brutal accelerations, brilliantly built tension until the finale with the madly shouted line your blood is my blood and a slightly melancholic ending. In short, Akercocke's showcase, because there you can find everything typical and great of these gentlemen. A very characteristic, and from today's perspective it's a bit funny, music video was quickly created for the song, although unfortunately in a much shortened version, where the tension does not build up as gradually as in the original. In any case, this was enough to significantly increase general interest in the band.

Well, "Choronzon" is not an album of one song. Similarly to the previous releases, there is also a lot going on on the third album, where the band alternates in its vision of playing music between black metal rawness, death metal heaviness, progressive song structures, lighter moments, keyboard/electronic additions (despite the lack of a regular guy responsible for the keyboard parts) and strongly satanic atmosphere. In this respect, the multidimensional, full of devil and thoroughly twisted "Son Of The Morning", "Praise The Name Of Satan", "Bathykolpian Avatar" and "Becoming The Advesary" are great in this aspect. Okay, "Choronzon" is a little bit less extreme than its predecessor, "Scapegoat" contains strange thrash metal influences (not entirely matched to the death/black core), and - again - has moderately necessary interludes (even though "Goddess Flesh" stands out for its atmosphere and spacious keyboards), but these are only minor things that do not affect the overall, extremely good reception of the album.

The third album by Akercocke is therefore another important step in the career of Jason Mendonça's band. By this release, these guys recorded the next part of their suit death-black vision in an equally professional setting as on "The Goat Of Mendes" and - without major changes - create very characterful compositions that became part of the band's classics. After all, what would Akercocke's recognition be without "Leviathan", huh? Nevertheless, as time quickly verified, Mendonça's group did not plan to stop at any progress.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal