Adversus - Principium Ascensionis

ADVERSUS - Principium Ascensionis (SCHATTENKULT CD 2015)

Another release from Schattenkult is Adversus, Belgian black metal band with their debut recording “Principium Ascensionis”. I honestly won’t be able to say much about Adversus and both gentlemen, who’re hiding behind names Frater G. and Frater E. Metal Archives says something about two or three other bands that they’re involved in, but I haven’t heard about any of them. Never heard of Adversus before also, so let’s just skip the introducing part, as you won’t be able to learn much from me.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to focus as much as I can on “Principium Ascensionis” and I did my best to get into this music… but I just couldn’t. As much as I worship traditional sounding harsh black metal (my recent review of Shadows Ground from the same label says a lot, I guess), in this case I just don’t feel convinced and to be honest, this is one of those albums that I feel totally careless about. I can understand that both members of Adversus tried to come up with some of the most chaotic, hateful and exceptionally “unfriendly” or unlistenable black metal, but it just doesn’t work for me. There’s almost nothing on this CD that I would really like; two or three riffs surely is not enough for me. Sometimes it just sounds like poor try to play instruments, but the primitive results are rather pitiful.

I know, I know… black metal has to be ugly and disgusting (oh, does it really???). I don’t care about such orthodox opinion, especially as black metal can have many faces. It can be atmospheric, it can be harsh. It can even sound mesmerizing. But on top of all, it’s either shit or exceptional. In this case, sorry to say so, but it’s pitiful and bad. These couple of moments, when I liked it a bit more are not enough and the whole “Principium Ascensionis” is as forgettable as it can only be. I doubt that people need more bands like Adversus, I don’t... so I'm not going to spend more time on listening to this album than I already did.

Final rate: 30/100