Reverence

The Asthenic Ascension

Written by: PP on 19/07/2012 06:01:06

"The Asthenic Ascension" is the fourth full length from the French experimental black metallers Reverence, who integrate avant-garde and industrial concepts into their rather ominous and evil take on the black metal genre. They are masters at crafting a pitch black soundscape that feels almost completely immersive precisely because they don't use extensive tremolo nor fast tempo, instead the songs crawl forward at a reasonable mid tempo range, which allows for extended riffs to slowly build an echoing chamber of evil throughout the album.

They even go as far as to involve a weeping woman as a sample during "Psalm IV", who sounds like her entire family was just murdered in front of her eyes. Yeah, you get the point, Reverence are basically going for an all-encompassing atmosphere of darkness on their record. The industrial undertones and prolonged experimental sequences also help in its creation, of course. A crisp, Candlelight Records-backed production ensures that the record succeeds to some extent in doing just that.

But ultimately, Reverence's weakness lies within their interpretation on black metal, in that it's really no different from other bands going for this type of sound. Innovation has been pushed aside in favour of a fairly standard, but acceptable black metal sound that won't win any new hearts to the band but should please their existing fan base to some degree.

Download: Psalm IV, The Descent
For the fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Glorior Belli,
Listen: Myspace

Release date 30.04.2012
Candlelight Records

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