Tuesday, May 2, 2017

ATREXIAL - Sourverain review



ATREXIAL - Sourverain

Godz  Of  War  Productions





Something hellish is cooking in Barcelona and it's not a bad dish of Paella. ATREXIAL is a new Black Metal act hailing from Spain. They're a three piece band consisting of Naga S. Malestrom on bass and synths, Louen on guitar and vocals and Labelua on drums. All three are local scene vets that came together to create a necessary evil in the form of their debut full length SOUVERAIN. 


This release is over fifty-five minutes of horrific modern black metal with some death metal touches. It's DEATHSPELL OMEGA meets BELPHEGOR at BLACK FUNERAL's parlor. It's an exploration of the deepest recesses of your mind with a poetic lyrical journey as narration as the sounds rip your synapses to shreds.


SOUVERAIN opens with "Enthronement" a slightly less than two minute atmospheric instrumental like the opening soundtrack to a horror movie. There's a few horror movie soundbites on here to boot. From that point on the music drops you into an abyss of torment with cranium cracking blast beats, riffs bouncing around from heavy to melodic. Louen offers up a nice selection of surgical lead work as well as tremolo picked runs that give this both a blackened death as well as a raw black metal feel. 


As far as the vocals go once again Louen mixes it up with either some high pitch blackened screams or bloody throat-ed death metal growls that tend to remind one of rolling thunder. Although all of what ATREXIAL brings to the plate is not all punishment. There are certain points where synths enter in slightly to close a song or strongly for a piano instrumental as well as on the outro which is kinda like a refrain as if you survived the maelstrom. 


In the end I'm left in awe of the blackened greatness which SOUVERAIN ultimately is. Even the artwork, which I rarely talk about in reviews, by Nestor Avalos entitled The Serpent's Prophet is captivating. By the way check out the website at https://www.artstation.com/artist/nestoravalosofficialblackartssite


http://www.godzovwar.com/

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Atrexial/

https://atrexial.bandcamp.com/releases

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