Azelisassath - Evil Manifestations Against Mankind

AZELISASSATH - Evil Manifestations Against Mankind (SCHATTENKULT Produktionen - CD 2014)

This album is another great surprise and fine discovery from Schattenkult Produktionen roster. I never had a chance to hear anything from Azelisassath before, but their second album is surely something that requires attention and support from all die hard black metallers. This band is led by Svartedöden, a’ka Azelisassath, who’s also in Bekëth Nexëhmü, which is also a killer black metal project from the cold Swedish vastlands. But I honestly didn’t know about these connections, when I started to play “Evil Manifestations Against Mankind” and only later I found some important info about Azelisassath on Metal Archives. Well, it doesn’t matter.

This is just fine Darkthrone’ish / Judas Iscariot-like sort of black metal. “” ticks all the right boxes for such style of music and it seems like everything has been done in the proper way. I’m not even bothered with these terribly dry, monotonous vocals, and after a while I got used to them. What matters the most is the perfect way, in which Azelisassath crafts the cold, grim and hateful atmosphere, especially when the sings turn more aggressive and malignant direction. It’s also a bit depressive and nostalgic with few riffs, so generally it’s a perfect combination of fast, blasting, harsh black metal with slower, more nostalgic, sometimes almost melodic stuff. I truly like the whole performance of Azelisassath sole member, the guitar work is not primitive and there’s a lot of killer riffs, the drumming may be very basic, but it simply fits this style of black metal greatly, so you should not expect more from it. And the production is harsh, but warm, organic, with really damn nice guitar tone. So, even if “Evil Manifestations Against Mankind” is not an album, which would bring anything special, and it’s not a flawless album neither… but there’s something possessing about it and I am sure that it’s one of those albums, which will be used as killer soundtrack for the upcoming winter.

Final rate: 70/100