Phantom - Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods

The original masters of blackened style terror metal, Phantom, have put together what is perhaps the most ambitious and distorted piece of black metal to have ever been dreamed of, let alone produced.

Taking black metal's exploration of dissonant atmosphere and atonal chaos further toward a point of existence than it has previously ever occupied, Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods marks the absolute zenith of horror and putridity in music, toppling even the masterpiece of evil The Epilogue to Sanity and the nightmarish Bloodthirst Overdose in terms of haunting, decrepit, malicious atmospheric madness and majesty.

Phantom have refined the black metal art of songcraft along the axis of malevolent and twisted melody in such a plausible interpretation of anti-human black metal that underground musicology, in its entirety, must surrender itself to the sheer terrifying blackness of Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods.

Songs, or laments of horror as they are to be more aptly named, are fast, brutal, and structured to move independently of riff order, introducing concepts and motifs which are then repeated and modified for introduction of a theme, reminiscent of early Burzum and Phantom's own work on Fallen Angel, then resolved in the evolution of the riff to a final concept which is held suspended in its black atmosphere, accountable for nothing but a complement to the darkness that came before.

Although given credit for its innovation and its achievement, Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods represents a possible future direction for the more complex and progressive avenues of black metal. After all, the seminal gore metal band Leader was (allegedly) named after this very album.

Never again will there be an album as terrifyingly evil and diabolically masterful as Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods. True darkness, not for the fragile, the feeble or the weak of mind.

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