Originally written by Erik Thomas.
Synopsis:
While the majority of US black metal seems to be steeped in the form of one man despondency, Texas’s Averse Sefira has risen from the gloom and delivered a seething, vitriolic and elite black metal album of traditionally epic proportions.
Review:
I have read and heard about Averse Sefira for a while now, hearing the name whispered with quiet reverence on the tongues of the black metal elite, but despite their lengthy and suitably obscure/small label history and never actually hearing the act, often thinking “how good can black metal from Texas be? How wrong. And now thanks to Candlelight, the rest of us are now exposed to this truly brilliant act.
Taking the slicing, polished Dissection-isms of Watain (Watain producer Tore Stjerna also produced Advent Parallax), the frosty ferocity of early Immortal and the swirling discordant chaos of Deathspell Omega (without the ambience), Advent Parallax is a masterpiece and a shot of vitriol to a mopey, over the medicated and increasingly copycat US black metal scene.
There are rarely any purely melodic or catchy riffs as such, but rather a continual vortex of savage and seething blasts that are serpentine and an undulating mixed with blistering atonal riffs that are almost otherwordly in their deadly delivery. Like Deathspell Omega, none of the eight lengthy (six to nine minutes) songs really stand out, but rather the album has to be absorbed as a one mind melting whole as the likes of bombastic opener “Descension”, epically chaotic “Refractions of an Unexpected Singularity”” and twisted shimmer of “A Shower of Idols” bore into your subconscious with their dissonant ferocity. That being said, the mix of restraint and chaos of “Serpents Recoil” and the militaristic, regal marching opening of standout closer “Vomitorium Angelis” has a riff to die for.
After 2007 saw stunning releases by the likes of Deathspell Omega, Cobalt, and Wolves In The Throne Room, 2008’s black metal is off to a shining start with Advent Parallax, and it’s not even April yet.
