ALBUM REVIEW: The Cleansing – Asphagor

Black metal has been suffering an identity crisis from the very moment it was blast-berated into its second-wave in the early-nineties by legions of occultists, spearheaded in particular by the likes of MAYHEM, EMPEROR and IMMORTAL. The years following have seen the genre to-and-fro between the desolate depths of distortion and satanic darkness and the progressive nature of lo-fi, stretching the very meaning of the genre to its furthest capacity. 2014 ushered in a new era of intelligent, forward-thinking black metal that complimented as much as it compromised the traditionalism of the genre, bringing the sound satanically to the 21st century, in the form of BEHEMOTH‘s career-defining opus The Satanist. Flash forward four years and Austria’s blackened death metal prodigies ASPHAGOR are journeying into the void BEHEMOTH opened, five years after their sophomore effort Anti. Much like BEHEMOTH before them, on The Cleansing, ASPHAGOR drift away from the concept of blackened death metal, opting instead to reconfigure the black metal rulebook, weaponizing elements of prog and thrash and arming themselves with never before seen layers of melody.

Across a single hour comprised of ten tracks, ASPHAGOR expand their concept of black metal, the traditional blast beats and howls omnipresent yet almost in the background, as if they are but a piece of the puzzle, and not the puzzle itself. Riddled throughout tracks such as Ardor and Sun Devourer are progressive interludes that toy with our understanding of melody, finding themselves far more suitable to modern metal, than to a genre known for its underground aesthetics, and yet The Cleansing is all the better for it. The album flows track-to-track as if it were a singular soundscape, a voyage of darkness illuminated by the light of ASPHAGOR‘s intelligence.

The Cleansing is intelligent, particularly in the way ASPHAGOR,as musicians, dismantle the genre into tiny little fragments and rebuild it in an entirely new order, circular looping riffs followed by interluding sheens for example. It isn’t without flaw though, there are moments where your mind drifts away, walls of sound blocking your senses from tearing apart the labyrinth of layers The Cleansing is comprised of. If they can control their excessive desire to throw several sounds on top of each other without forming them into a comprehensive order, then ASPHAGOR will be an uncompromising beast, primed to become the undisputed flag bearers of Austrian black metal.

Whilst a lengthy gap between records can often be the Achilles heel of a band showered in acclaim, ASPHAGOR have proved on The Cleansing that it is possibly to hide away from the world and create the blueprint for a masterwork.

Rating: 8/10 

The Cleansing is out now via Black Sunset/MDD Records.

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