Martyrium

My first encounter with Antestor was years ago when a Rowe Compilation named ‘Northern Lights’ where Inmost Fear, Thoughts and Mercy Lord were compiled. I was amazed about their depressive sound and all the influences such as viking, gothic, doom, black metal and even death metal (in the voice mainly). At that time I did not get what the band was all about but in time it becomes clear being their point with the ‘study’ that you have gone through for many years in the metal world. So, when a band like this creates or should I say rise up controversy it is usually due to two reasons: 1. they are utter bad music (including instrumentation, lyrics, songwriting, etc) or 2. They are as good as any and some purists cannot accept this fact.

Antestor crafted these songs early in their career but they never got the chance to record them properly, until after Return of the Black Death was recorded and put out on Cacophonous and they were signed with Endtime they got it. The album thus, is a mixture of all these styles mentioned above and it is sometimes hard to dig it because of this whereas you get depressive songs, black metal songs, death metal growls, ala Falkenbach songs (‘Thoughts’), doom, and gothic songs and some very progressive elements (for a black metal band) like the tempo changes and the long riff progressions or keyboard interludes. The guitar distortion in overall bothers me a lot due to its atmospheric feeling and it is too screechy. I think it should be more down-tuned and thick to give the perfect dark sound they wanted to show us. The drums work pretty fine in the slow mid tempo parts but not on the fast parts. The bass, due to bad sound mixing is almost not audible, which is bad because a thick bass sound would’ve given this album a more compact sound. Guitar solos, which are very rare on these bands are predominant here and they are everywhere when the songs do not fall into the doom or ala Viking categories.

Spiritual Disease is a beautiful song except for some things that I consider to be not so great like the guitar distortion and the horrific drumming in the fast parts which are very far from the pure blast beats common to black metal, but aside from that it has exquisite guitar solos and the black metal shrieks can pierce your soul. It has as well a lot of tempo changes which I consider to be very good. This is one of the songs which have this gloomy and depressive sound which Antestor has become famous for. The use of keyboards is also very good and I don’t think they overpower the guitars and/or the music for that matter.

I will not detail on every song but as far as ‘Depressed’ sound it is one of my favorites, mainly due to its sad atmosphere with the piano introduction and the low ‘’chant’’ vocals, plus black metal vocals and very slow pace to give this terrible and desperate feeling. ‘Materialistic lie’, ‘Searching’ and ‘under the sun’ (based on King Salomon’s search in life) are almost identical and they are not remarkable. ‘Inmost Fear’ is a doom song with harsh/low vocals. ‘Thoughts’ follows very much the Falkenbach structure with flute intro and then it builds up to a mid pace song with black metal shrieks and very introspective lyrics. ‘Martyrium’ is an instrumental guitar driven, nothing out of the ordinary but not out of place since it is mid tempo and it has a great ethereal atmosphere. Finally we get to ‘Mercy Lord’ which is really hard to explain, I’d say you have to listen it by yourself but what I can say is that it is atmospheric keyboard driven like those used by Mr. King Diamond with death growls and a very slow pace AND an awesome melody. It also has a keyboard solo and the beautiful ethereal vocals of Tora which can be compared (on this song at least) to Vibeke Stene from Tristania and it ends with such a desperate mood that you cannot help but feeling alone and in complete desolation after listening to this. A few bands can create this emotion on me and that is why I give Antestor credit. Since I am not fan of these kinds of bands, they provide what you look for: depressive and sad atmosphere that can move you. Whether you like (like me) intelligent provoking lyrics or Christian messages and/or positive messages you can check these guys out. They still a lot to offer and some production cleaning and highlights here and there could make them polish their brand (which would happen later in the Forsaken album) but as for a start this is indeed a good album to check out.