Archaicus - Beneath The Horizon
2003 - Demo
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Archaicus website.
The British black metal scene insists on vomiting forth fresh blood with alarming regularity these days, but luckily for all us corpse-paint freaks, they all seem to have something exceptional to offer us! Anaal Nathrakh sandblasted the flesh from our bones with hate-filled extremity, Frost took us back to the frost-bitten roots of what BM is all about, and now Archaicus are here with a sound that is both contemporary and classic, taking in all influences and managing still to sound individualistic.
Revelling in the excessively trebly, lo-fi production of back-to-basics BM like Darkthrone, but never resorting to the riff-recycling nature of that band, Beneath The Horizon delivers an extreme yet mature take on black metal, and one that manages with almost effortless ease to grasp the feeling of the majestic, the grandiose, the downright epic, which so many other bands of the genre fall short of reaching.
Escaping The Deterioration Of The Earth begins with a typically full-throttle blast-beat and buzzsaw-riff intro, but quickly begins to evolve into a totally different beast - a sudden pause leads to an almost medieval-sounding acoustic mid-section, which then turns into a slow-paced crescendo where crashing chords and cymbals smash through the speakers with considerable dramatic effect. And this pattern is repeated throughout this three-track demo, with the sinister, atmospheric intro of Over The Hills And Beneath The Horizon utilising keyboards to fantastic effect - choral effects, church organs and the sounds of ice water dripping from stalactites into icy pools... Even strange, heavily-echoed choir-like vocals are used, bringing up images of monks singing Gregorian chants.
The vocals, too, are used to good effect - here a strangled screech, there a choir-esque moan, thither a deep growl, occasionally a prophetic whisper... however, all the vocals sound as though they're coming from deep within a cave, which is great for the atmosphere, but not so great for giving them clarity or depth in the mix.
This minor niggle aside though, Archaicus provide an intriguingly individualistic take on black metal that delivers both in tearaway extremity and in delivering a sense of scale and maturity lacking in most modern black metal. I can only recommend that you tootle along to the website and give Archaicus a listen.
8.5/10
2003 - Demo
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Archaicus website.
The British black metal scene insists on vomiting forth fresh blood with alarming regularity these days, but luckily for all us corpse-paint freaks, they all seem to have something exceptional to offer us! Anaal Nathrakh sandblasted the flesh from our bones with hate-filled extremity, Frost took us back to the frost-bitten roots of what BM is all about, and now Archaicus are here with a sound that is both contemporary and classic, taking in all influences and managing still to sound individualistic.
Revelling in the excessively trebly, lo-fi production of back-to-basics BM like Darkthrone, but never resorting to the riff-recycling nature of that band, Beneath The Horizon delivers an extreme yet mature take on black metal, and one that manages with almost effortless ease to grasp the feeling of the majestic, the grandiose, the downright epic, which so many other bands of the genre fall short of reaching.
Escaping The Deterioration Of The Earth begins with a typically full-throttle blast-beat and buzzsaw-riff intro, but quickly begins to evolve into a totally different beast - a sudden pause leads to an almost medieval-sounding acoustic mid-section, which then turns into a slow-paced crescendo where crashing chords and cymbals smash through the speakers with considerable dramatic effect. And this pattern is repeated throughout this three-track demo, with the sinister, atmospheric intro of Over The Hills And Beneath The Horizon utilising keyboards to fantastic effect - choral effects, church organs and the sounds of ice water dripping from stalactites into icy pools... Even strange, heavily-echoed choir-like vocals are used, bringing up images of monks singing Gregorian chants.
The vocals, too, are used to good effect - here a strangled screech, there a choir-esque moan, thither a deep growl, occasionally a prophetic whisper... however, all the vocals sound as though they're coming from deep within a cave, which is great for the atmosphere, but not so great for giving them clarity or depth in the mix.
This minor niggle aside though, Archaicus provide an intriguingly individualistic take on black metal that delivers both in tearaway extremity and in delivering a sense of scale and maturity lacking in most modern black metal. I can only recommend that you tootle along to the website and give Archaicus a listen.
8.5/10
