Azathoth

HP Lovecraft is a name that's definitely gotten popular in the last 20 years, especially amongst Metal nerds. Metallica, Morbid Angel, Nile and many, many more have used his works as a basis for their music and unfortunately, very few ever really capture the feeling of Lovecraft's writing, and while the concept is neat, the music just does not live up to expectations. Sadly, Azathoth is no different.

This demo starts off with a piano intro which just gets on my nerves. Most intro tracks do though. What's the point? The mood of the piano really has no bearing on the Metal music coming after it, and it serves as just a bit of an annoyance when I have to skip to track 2 to really listen to this. The first real song, In Darkest Dreams, starts off in a pretty cliche Neo-Classical shred section that doesn't sound unlike something you'd hear from Mr. Malmsteen circa 1984. The song then progresses through a series of pretty tame sounding Black Metal riffs until we get to a "spooky" interlude section with synth, drums and vocals. From there the song goes through a few more sections that just seem downright underwhelming. There's one section in particular that has a movie sample on top of it that is just impossible to hear. Did they even listen to the recording before they decided to release it?

The same can really be said for the last song "Amaranth." The Black Metal sections are just so tame and nonthreatening, and it doesn't help that the production is so muddy that you can't even hear what they're doing half the time. The guitar tone on this demo is just abysmal. It's really thin, muddy and there's no bite to it. If you're gonna tune as low as these guys do then you really need to make sure you have a solid tone that can help with the clarity. Back to the song though: it's not all bad. There's a section towards the end that has a nice build to it, which culminates in a return to the first few sections. This is almost completely offset by the minute long keyboard/guitar wankfest solo section, however, which honestly serves no purposes other than to scream "look at how fast we can play." There's no well thought out construction, or interesting licks and phrasing.

The other two songs "Alhazred" and "The Lament Configuration" both have their strong points. They're far more aggressive than the other two and are more in a Death Metal vein. The problem here lies in that the band refuses to shake the melodic Black Metal vibe, even if they have to force it in where it doesn't belong. Nothing exemplifies this more than in The Lament Configuration. After an absurd minute long sample from Hellraiser, the song starts out with some killer Death Metal style riffing, after which the band IMMEDIATELY shifts gears into a happy, symphonic keyboard based section. It's a poor transition, and ultimately just sounds forced. The band does it again when switching from an epic, grandiose piano based section into something that you might hear on Electrocution's "Inside the Unreal." Where is the forethought, and where is the respect for the flow of the song? Azathoth is bordering on forcing unnecessary and poor transitions more than Dream Theater.

This band really just needs to focus on what they want, because I think they have the ability to write some good stuff. Their mistakes lie with their desire to appeal to several different genres of Metal, and they're not particularly great with any of them except for the Death Metal riffing. Their upbeat Black parts sound generic due to the lame guitar progressions and overbearing keyboards, and their dark, evil Black parts sound like every other band from the 90s 2nd Black Metal wave. Lyrically the songs are pretty great, if not a bit of EA Poe worship, but the vocals themselves are pretty bad. The gurgles are completely out of place and overused, and the screams are just weak and strained. The keyboards are overused and overbearing, and just flat out don't fit on half the sections they're used.

Going back to the name and theme of the band that I mentioned earlier: where is the Lovecraft? Sure, there's a song about Alhazred, but the atmosphere of the album is nothing particularly interesting or unique. Where is the creepiness, the uneasiness and horror the Lovecraft tried to evoke? It's just not here.

To be fair though, this is just a demo and it is several years old now. I'll wait for another release before I write the band off completely as something that wants everything and just can't deliver.