ALBUM REVIEW: Akolyth – Akolyth

The debut album of ritualistic Black Metallers AKOLYTH is here, promising ferocious and untamed might with a traditionalist yet groundbreaking sound. Set for release on May 29th via Amor Fati Productions.

With no introduction needed, discordant guitars and relentless drums amidst a scourge of howls churn out a disdainfully fierce, energising display of gruelling intensity. The dissonant and raw assault continues with cascades of surprisingly warm guitars and rather rocky drum beats, though with plenty of blasts to keep things extreme. A maniacal vocal performance accentuates this extremity with tortured and twisted howling spewed across the mesmerising and magnificently warped instrumentals. Hammering forth with untampered zeal, Akolyth may only be making their debut but with a great and insightful sound that clearly doesn’t lack confidence.

Throughout these four pieces we are treated, or tortured by depending on your outlook, by masterfully crafted Black Metal with rivetingly aggressive onslaughts amidst a chaotic blend of catchy, grooving hooks and discordantly harsh soundscapes, truly a powerful concoction. Although overall this is a rather contemporary sound, it is clearly rooted in the traditions and old school sounds of Black Metal bands such as Gorgoroth while the likenesses to Craft, Leviathan and Deathspell Omega are more obvious. That being said, Akolyth does not truly sound like any of these bands singularly or even combined, with a uniquely ritualistic and eerie approach filled with torturous progressions and perhaps a less experimental nature.

Altogether this is an astonishingly unique piece of musical prowess that certainly deserves exploration by the underground Black Metal fans with a mind open to hideously macabre discordance, chaotic symphonies and ruthless assaults that are certainly not for the tame or meagre, nor the casual listener. Destructive, blasphemous and insane, while this is unnerving material, the hugely skilful songwriting and endless streams of transcendent progression keep things incredibly interesting with an ecstatically evil performance. Disturbed, vanquishing Black Metal at its purest is what we is conjured here.

Enticingly mysterious and heinously punishing, with perhaps a few industrial touches to the drums, this is the kind of Black Metal that rekindles that dangerous feeling in the genre, something that may be rarer in this age of easily accessed bands. Akolyth storm on, unfazed by modernity and deliver a crushing opus of blasphemous violence and musical brilliance, truly a spectacle to behold. Give this a release a chance if you are prepared to be shaken by its magnificence. A promising debut that will hopefully not be the last we hear of Akolyth but has certainly left its mark regardless. -9/10