Azarath
Infernal Blasting

Azarath, a name that might not mean anything to many of you; and I hope so, it didn't mean anything to me either, at least until a short time ago. What's serious is that now that I know them, it still doesn't mean anything to me. A sad beginning for me, but I wanted to immediately explain the reason for my rating, which to be honest is rounded up more than down. Coming from Poland, a land which, as I've said elsewhere, has given birth to numerous Death Metal Bands (I remember the usual Vader, Mutilation, Trauma, Sceptic, Decapitated), Azarath have so far released only two LPs, "Demon Seed" and this 2003 "Infernal Blasting". I chose to review the second, even though it is chronologically later, because between the two, it's the better developed idea of the first; however, there's not such a big difference between them, and I probably would have ended up giving both the same rating.

Their sound is very similar to that of a fellow compatriot band (which those who know the genre would have noticed are missing from the list above), namely Behemoth: the sound is a mix between Death and Black metal and, like the aforementioned, Azarath also started by favoring Black (in "Demon Seed" there was even a track titled "Deathlike Silente", probably a homage to Euronymous's "cult label") to then progressively shift towards the shores of Death (a process opposite to that of the historic Norwegian Black bands like Dark Throne, Immortal, and Mayhem). Now, I must admit that I've never particularly loved Behemoth, but to be fair their way of playing is quite personal; so for these guys here to also start copying them seems excessive, especially considering that the choice to mix two extreme yet distinct genres like Black and Death is not the easiest. Azarath, as happened to their inspirers (at least in my opinion), end up sacrificing the Black's atmosphere to the Death and the latter's power to the former. Total failure? No, it would be dishonest to say so, but I believe such a proposition leaves both fans of one and the other genre wanting. The album consists of nine songs whose themes are caught between the Death "bleedings" ("Born To Rot", "Joy Of Mutilation") and the more frequent Black "satanics" ("False God Burn In Hell", "Christcum"), and as far as I'm concerned, are both treated with the same approximation that satisfies everyone and no one. In reality, except for exceptional cases, I don't really care much about the lyrics, but for Azarath they offer a good parallel with the compositional aspect. With the same spirit with which they write the lyrics, the Poles write the music: the result is a hodgepodge of clichés of the two proposed genres, blast beats, and growling mixed haphazardly with vaguely Black riffs. The performers' technique is good, actually, more than good, but it's not enough. Behind the skins, the drummer does everything to be heard, but his performance (the best in the group) is not fully convincing and quickly becomes boring; noteworthy counter-times and accelerations fade into the banality of the tracks, which are really feeble. The guitarists, the true endoskeleton of the band, manage only to reproduce riffs that can be found by the thousands without even leaving the confines of Poland (just rifle through the records of the compatriots I mentioned at the beginning). The solos are so predictable that, having listened to a bit of metal from 1983 to today, they can be predicted even before they start playing: the usual four scales lined up and played at a hundred per hour. The singer, like his mates, is adequate but nothing more: decent growling poorly accompanies unconvincing screaming that fails to give vigor to the product. Finally, the usual ghost bassist who is there and (especially) isn't; the production bears some responsibility here, although in other contexts it would have been very good because it's clear but powerful.

"Infernal Blasting" is a CD that I don't feel like recommending to anyone who isn't a hardcore fan of Black Death (not the Dissection kind, the less melodic one): in that case, after asking themselves for a few days while only eating apricots if they really are a hardcore fan of Black Death, the hardcore fan of Black Death might consider it since the genre doesn't have that many representatives. But trust me, by searching you might find something better.