Alhagazanth - Osiris - Typhon Unmasked
Woodcut Records - 2002
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Woodcut Records web site.
In the unofficial contest for the prize of 'most ridiculous band-name ever', Alhagazanth are clearly the fore-runners for the crown (despite facing stiff competition from Anaal Nathrakh and Zarathrustra). In the somewhat more relevant competition for the coveted award of 'most fast 'n' furious black metal assault around', they're not doing too badly either.
Describing themselves as 'majestic' black metal, Alhagazanth couple the tinkly, almost keyboard-centric melodies of more commercial black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir, while retaining the hyper-speed tempos and infernal blast-beat attacks of more extreme acts such as the aforementioned Nathrakh and the old-school Norwegian acts. As well as all that, they also manage to throw into the mix a little of the contemporary inventiveness of such acts as Borknagar, making this a very interesting listen.
'The Circle Of Six' is almost an inappropriate opener for the album, containing slightly too much of the tinkly keyboard melodies for the comfort of extreme metalheads such as yours truly, but things quickly improve with the supercharged riffing and inhuman drumming of stormers like 'In Invidiam', which contains some rather nice pinch harmonics in the melodies for that added 'sinister discordance' factor.
As an added bonus, Alhagazanth reveal their penchant for old-school speed metal with a blackened cover of Megadeth's 'Symphony Of Destruction' tacked onto the end of the album as a hidden track. Suffice it to say that the squeaky-clean production of the original is very much a thing of the past, with Alhagazanth's treatment turning the track into a caustic riff-a-rama.
Which of course is all well and good, but where Alhagazanth really triumph is in the tracks that they have written themselves. This album shows the work of a band who know exactly what they're doing and where they want to be. And if I can catch a lift with them too, so much the better.
9/10
Woodcut Records - 2002
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Woodcut Records web site.
In the unofficial contest for the prize of 'most ridiculous band-name ever', Alhagazanth are clearly the fore-runners for the crown (despite facing stiff competition from Anaal Nathrakh and Zarathrustra). In the somewhat more relevant competition for the coveted award of 'most fast 'n' furious black metal assault around', they're not doing too badly either.
Describing themselves as 'majestic' black metal, Alhagazanth couple the tinkly, almost keyboard-centric melodies of more commercial black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir, while retaining the hyper-speed tempos and infernal blast-beat attacks of more extreme acts such as the aforementioned Nathrakh and the old-school Norwegian acts. As well as all that, they also manage to throw into the mix a little of the contemporary inventiveness of such acts as Borknagar, making this a very interesting listen.
'The Circle Of Six' is almost an inappropriate opener for the album, containing slightly too much of the tinkly keyboard melodies for the comfort of extreme metalheads such as yours truly, but things quickly improve with the supercharged riffing and inhuman drumming of stormers like 'In Invidiam', which contains some rather nice pinch harmonics in the melodies for that added 'sinister discordance' factor.
As an added bonus, Alhagazanth reveal their penchant for old-school speed metal with a blackened cover of Megadeth's 'Symphony Of Destruction' tacked onto the end of the album as a hidden track. Suffice it to say that the squeaky-clean production of the original is very much a thing of the past, with Alhagazanth's treatment turning the track into a caustic riff-a-rama.
Which of course is all well and good, but where Alhagazanth really triumph is in the tracks that they have written themselves. This album shows the work of a band who know exactly what they're doing and where they want to be. And if I can catch a lift with them too, so much the better.
9/10
