Album Review: Avmakt – Satanic Inversion Of…. (Peaceville)

From the depths of Norway looms a new rising beast of hate and misanthropy in the form of Avmakt. Featuring the duo of Kristian Valbo and Christoffer Bråthen – known for their work with such acts as Aura Noir, Obliteration, and Condor – their debut album, ‘The Satanic Inversion of….’ is out on August 30th, 2024, via Peaceville.

What Avmakt offer here might be ‘new’ but sonically, it’s pulled from the past. The ‘golden age’ of black metal in fact, and with that, a rawness that cuts right to the bone like an icy wind. This is an album of evil sounding music, and those who like their metal to sound delightfully unholy will find it extremely appealing.

It really is as simple as that. Avmakt make no pretences to be anything but a throwback of bleak blackness. They just so happen to be immeasurably talented enough to make it sound necessary listening.

The album is six tracks long, and there are some lengthy tomes here, but this level of black metal anguish takes its toll, so it’s good that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. From the moment the fast and unrelenting cacophony of noise that is Ordinance and Poison Reveal arrives, there’s a real sense of sinister suffering that comes through strongly.

However, it’s with the mammoth Sharpening Blades of Cynicism, a track that passes the ten-minute mark, that Avmakt’s true twisted power is revealed. Dark, grim, fierce, and hypnotic, this is a track that fully envelops the mind and drags it down into the cold void. Now, with such depths plumbed already, it would be easy to see any further treks into deeper darkness as nothing more than reruns, but that would be a mistake. Avmakt have plenty more foreboding areas to explore and unleash a cacophony of horror with a pair of hellacious and horrifying listens called Towing Oblivion and Charred.

Finally, and putting the emphatic stamp of blackness on things, it’s Doubt and the Void and the unending sound of misery. Avmakt do get a little experimental here, but it never leaves the realm of pure, icy, and effective black metal. It’s what they do, it’s what this album is all about, and it’s what makes both them, and it, so enjoyable. Provided you’re happy to have your soul blackened that little bit more.

Avmakt – The Satanic Inversion of…. Track Listing:

1. Ordinance
2. Poison Reveal
3. Sharpening Blades of Cynicism
4. Towing Oblivion
5. Charred
6. Doubt and the Void

Links

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