ABSU - Barathrum: V.I.T.R.I.O.L. (BESTIAL ONSLAUGHT - LP 2004 / GOTHIC Records - CD 1993)
I honestly don’t like the American black metal
so much. With just a couple of exceptions from the old days and few newer bands
most of the stuff from the US land was not impressive at all. But there are
always some exceptions, as I mentioned, and the main one here for me personally
is Absu. This is a band, which I actually really fuckin love. They have always
been playing very unique music, they never looked at what was going on in the
Scandinavia, but just played their own style of black metal, with their own
influences and concept and for that they deserve a great respect. I have been
knowing them since the mid 90’s, after reading an interview in one magazine when
I decided to get one cassette of theirs and since then I am a big fan. This
album was titled "Barathrum: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies
Occultul Lapidem". Now almost 20 years later I still truly love this LP
and consider it to be Absu’s finest along with “Tara”, so damn awesome it is.
This album is truly unique, special and one of a kind. No other band before and
after has composed something similar. No other band – especially from the USA –
have ever matched this quality and I cannot imagine a black metal maniac
without this LP in his collection. There are several CD / LP versions released
– the one from The Crypt Records is especially worthy recommending, being
released as a 3LP box set limited to 500 copies (200 black, 300 red/black
marbled) with great layout, etc. I personally have a 2004 Bestial Onslaught
picture LP version, which also looks nice. It has the lyrics, which is
important for such albums, and the picture of the vinyl on side A has the
original artwork (which is just beautiful!) and the legendary band photo, which
was also used on the cover of some CD versions, is on side B. So yeah, it truly
looks breathtaking. And some may now ask “but what is the point in reviewing
something so old and what you already know so well?”. Hmm, I guess there’s only
one answer – to pay respect and honour the authors of this album and more so,
maybe also to describe how important this LP is for me and finally to recommend
it to those, who maybe have never had a chance to hear it (are there still any
such poor people???).
Everything about "Barathrum: V.I.T.R.I.O.L."
is special. The artwork is phenomenal, so is their old logo. The lyrics are
great, and finally they even recorded an awesome 12 minutes long video for
three of the songs, which also is just excellent. And finally the music… wow.
WOW! This is majestic, epic, harsh, aggressive, occult, dark and obscure black
metal in its finest form. The origins of the band were more like death / thrash
sort of thing, with some very archaic black metal, especially on their demos
and previous band Dolmen, and musically you can still hear some of these
influences on “Barathrum”. There are quite few thrashing riffs, which spice up the
whole album and add some aggression to the entire music, especially as the main
focus has been placed on the epicness and atmosphere. To achieve that, Absu has
used many intros, special interludes, which truly create dark and evil
atmosphere, etc. Just listen to how this albums begins… “An Involution of
Thorns” is sort of orchestral, choral, ambient intro, very majestic and gloomy,
with killer vocals of Emperor Proscriptor Magikus – it all sounds like some
sort of invocation, a beginning of the ritual / rite or something. Truly killer
beginning, but then you have “Descent to Acheron (Evolving into the Progression
of Woe)”, which for me is the best song from the whole album. From the very
first riff you know it is going to be something amazing… opened with sort of
almost bombastic, epic motif it is just damn heavy and powerful, but then the
pace speeds up, it turns into angry, aggressive beast. I love the atmosphere of
this song, all these arrangements, some of which were really brave for this
sort of music and for those times – like that one with the female vocals mixed
with ghoulish voice of Shaftiel. But it just sounds excellent, in my opinion
and how relentless it also is… Uuggghhhh… Personally I consider “Descent to
Acheron (Evolving into the Progression of Woe)” to be one of the best black
metal songs ever written.
But then we have another beast coming titled “An
Equinox of Fathomless Disheartenment”. It is again reasonably fast and
aggressive, with very heavy, brilliant riffing… Musically it is sort of similar
to some Acheron satanic opuses, in my opinion, maybe just slightly better.
There are some seriously killer riffs and the screaming voice of Proscriptor sounds
like from the abyss. “Infinite and Profane Thrones” is another truly worth
mentioning part of “Barathrum”; opened with another orchestral intro, which
always gives me shivers it smoothly evolves into one just incredibly amazing
riff and turns into epic, utterly obscure and mystical brilliance. In such
songs I can see how great role is of the vocals, where the vocalists are like
narrators, invocators. And Shaftiel especially is an awesome vocalist, I think
this guy sounds just perfect on “Barathrum”. “Infinite and Profane Thrones” is
surely among the finest moments of the album; this song is incredibly diverse,
great composed, arranged and performed, so I just have nothing else to wish
for. A true masterpiece is also “Fantasizing to the Third of the Pagan Vision
(Quoth the Sky, Nevermore Act II)”; the slowest (in some parts) and most epic
among these songs, this one is truly amazing. There are more keyboards used in
it than in the whole rest of the album, so the atmosphere is truly dark,
sinister and mystical, occult in 666%. Pure ritual, this is how I feel this
music is like. So yeah, so much is going on in “Barathrum”, there is just
brilliant atmosphere and compositions, so I honestly consider this album to be
close to perfection.
Standout tracks: “Descent to Acheron (Evolving
into the Progression of Woe)”, “Infinite and Profane Thrones”, “Fantasizing to
the Third of the Pagan Vision (Quoth the Sky, Nevermore Act II)”
Final rate: 95/100
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