Ave Sathanas I Was Born to Murder the World

Lately i've been very interested on the Portuguese black metal group or collective known as "the black circle." I was introduced to it thanks to Black Cilice and naturally I HAD to find at least the main releases from each band of this Circle, as both Black Cilice and Mons Veneris showcase a very strong LLN influence. I must say that "Ave Sathanas I Was Born to Murder the World" caught my attention due to the name similarities to the Mutiilation's EP "Hail Satanas We Are The Black Legions", needless to say it was an extremely hard task to find at least a digital copy of this material, let alone a physical one.

The album kicks off with a short and simple intro of Vulturius groaning unintelligible words and right after this the first riff comes in, it is quite simple and actually hears more like a slowed down thrash metal riff; not long after this the blasting begins, and oh boy it's bad. The drums are WAY too obviously programmed; the blast beats sound insanely fast and are too loud, effectively managing to eclipsize and drown the riffs. After this barrage of exaggeratedly fast blast beats we can listen to a new attack of double-bass, I don't know what the fuck Vulturius had in mind but this part sounds awful; the bass drum is even louder than the snare, it sounds bad and really puts you off. The riffs sound uninspired and generic; mostly mid to fast-paced tremolo picked riffs that sound like a weaker and lower version of Darkthrone riffs with the extra addition of being very low on the mix.

However not everything here is bad; the song "I Hate You All" actually has a really decent and oppressively cold riff and in general the guitarwork here is pretty much average. They do not stand out but aren't completely mediocre either... The bass in the album is inaudible, so I'll just skip that. Vocally there is absolutely no variation, mostly highly distorted rasps and shrieks that sound rather hollow but still get the job done, nothing really outstanding here.

The production leans more towards a cleaner sound when compared to most other Black Circle bands. The guitars sound clear if you pay attention and the drums have a decent sound even if they're programmed. The mixing here is awfully unbalanced like I previously said, the drums absolutely drown the guitars during most of the 37 minutes of it's duration and THIS is the major and most damaging flaw on this album, black metal is all about the riffs and the drums should be used only to maintain the pace of the music, and shouldn't be a driving force.

All in all Ave Sathanas isn't an album worth hunting down, at least not a physical copy as it's music is unoriginal and has a considerable number of flaws. If you're interested in listening to The Black Circle bands listen to Black Cilice, Mons Veneris or Vetala, I don't know if Irae's second album is somewhat of an improvement but as far as this record goes, it's pretty generic. It might cater to those who seek ultra-obscure traditional black metal or bands who still belong to a group or collective.