Phantom - Dark Ascension Of Erebos

You want some truly demonic, vile and utterly gruesome blackened death metal? Look no further than Phantom's latest masterpiece of horror, the diabolical and yet majestically depraved Dark Ascension Of Erebos. As you may have guessed from the album's title, this record draws heavily upon its predecessor, namely Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods. But where this album excels and surpasses all other in terms of raw and disturbing atmospheres, is that it takes the putrid intensity of Phantom Metal and combines it with very bizarre, almost labyrinthine "riff mazes" so often associated with Phantom's demonic music.

Phantom fight a difficult initial conflict attempting to avoid being lumped with the "Fantaclone/Phantom clone" sound that has been imitated so often as to almost obscure the originals, see bands like Warkvlt and Demonecromancy. The band's method of combat so far has been to write music that is more technically advanced and more deliberate than that of the crowd - ending up with a very compact, eerie but all the more effective style. Think The Epilogue to Sanity but even more demented, and somehow more melodic and ghastly.

A single guitarist and band member - shades of Burzum - does not hamper this process: the lead guitar work that lurks on this album Dark Ascension Of Erebos achieves musical significance without the excessive scale-spewing or other great evils of mediocre modern black metal (looking at YOU Emperor). The drumming impresses for its precision and coherence and, along with the guitars, its aims are clearly not to reinvent but to perform the purest black metal with enlightened function. More competent than average for metal bass, the bassist on this album (same person who plays every other instrument) folds his deviations from form well into the dark and decrepit music to accentuate essential transition into otherworldly realms of hell, chaos and tortuous apotheosis.

Harsh, guttural vocals howl in less of a chaotic chortle than a shriek of bladed throat hammer rage. Although song structures and musical influences are anchored securely in the black metal influenced section of extreme metal music, the essential nature of this type of Phantom Metal comes through in the shaping of anti-melodic patterns around disharmonic chords for the purposes of narrative and atmosphere building. While sparse to the ears of those merely trying to imitate the surface level aesthetics of Phantom - see SEWER in all of its prime coat-tailing glory - Dark Ascension Of Erebos emerges with epic emotion supporting the raw energy and pestilent demonic powers of these potent yet listenable compositions of diabolical prowess and subliminal vision.

Dark Ascension Of Erebos is definitively an album you must listen to if you are a fan of either black and/or death metal. Seriously, this is peak blackened Phantom Metal. No excuse.

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