Album Review: An Axis of Perdition - Apertures
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Having changed their determiner from the definite to the indefinite article, Middlesborough merchants of misanthropy are back with a new record. Thirteen years on from the Tenements (of the Anointed Flesh) album, Apertures finds Axis… retaking their rightful place beside contemporaries Anaal Nathrakh, Blut Aus Nord and the grim industrialised sound of Godflesh.
If your exposure to Black Metal has been limited to a handful of corpse-painted, triplet-playing bands down at the local club, then brace yourself for the ghastly reality of unrelenting nihilism and uncompromising bleakness; for An Axis of Perdition never were courting popular acceptance and the dozen or so years between releases confirms that had not changed.
Apertures takes much from the layout of 1349’s controversial classic, Revelation of the Black Flame, having half of the tracks acting as dark, ambient interludes between the main tunes. Corrupted Pulse opens this journey into the black recesses of the underworld with a dense and discordant, unsettling entrance. The tolling of a distant bell can be heard, along with the fizz of some faulty electronics and the pitiful sobs of an unknown individual.
Each interlude takes us one step further into the labyrinthian Hellscape of Apertures; The Undercity Awaits introduces us to a Lovecraftian vista, as rumbling and howling can be identified. Sewer of Lethe forms a dank and foreboding bridge between tracks, as Unimaginable Depths leads us deeper into Infernal drones and Flesh Underfoot seals our fate.
The songs of Apertures act like the Circles of Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, each with a specific form of misery and pain to reveal to the album’s protagonist. Metempsychosis - meaning the transmigration of souls from one form to another – arrives with muddy drums and a dense, unsettling introduction; a pulsing underscores the ripping tempo as Brooke Johnson’s demonic snarls and gravelly rasps are enough to give Atilla nightmares.
Chant of the Worshipful Prey becomes the blackest music could reasonably be, yet the vocals manage to take a turn for the (relatively) hopeful around the mid-point. More prominent guitar begins to elevate the song out of the gutter and into a somewhat more positive aspect, though the soaring black melodies of WInterfylleth’s latest are nowhere to be seen. The end point of the elevation is when the echoing, madness-inducing layered vocals combine with a raw, black metal charge.
Apertures is not an album looking to break any speed records, rather the atmospherics of slow, plodding, black-doom riffs, constructing miserable soundscapes and haunted discomfort. The Truth is There to Tear Apart eschews any consideration of high tempo tunes, in favour of filthy, pestilent progressions, repeating over, and over again, to the point of insanity. It’s a dystopian future awaiting us if Axis… are to be believed, and no amount of genuflection to higher powers will change that.
The endless, inescapable repetition of Private Acts of Abnegation seems to seal the fate of the unnamed protagonist, which is probably not a specific individual, rather the only surety (other than paying tax) any of us can expect. The finale of I am Odium is oddly upbeat and positive sounding, though the slight switch cannot mitigate the abject nihilism and decay of the preceding nine tracks.
Through five albums, one EP and the split with Pulsefear Axis of Perdition have been peddling misanthropy and insanity since 2002; and from the Corridors split, via Deleted Scenes from the Transition Hospital, to Apertures, the band have not let up on their bleak, grim societal view. Looking at the state of the world in 2024, it feels as though they have never been closer to the truth.
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