WWI Black / Death Metal from the frontlines of France anyone? Well that is what we have here and these troops from the past are not as new an entity as I actually thought on first listen as a bit of digging in the trenches unveiled that members are also in The Negation whose ‘Paths Of Obedience’ I recently reviewed. After a couple of demos Azziard got in the thick of things with 2009 album 1916, this is their second and has somewhat co-incidentally been my listening companion as I plough through all of the Sven Hassel books for the first time, landing just as I had got to ‘Liquidate Paris.’ Wrong war maybe but it allowed me to partly soak up the atmosphere of both.
A brief and maudlin keyboard shrouds things in a funereal despondency before drums and guitars gradually build up with strong melody behind them. A wild shriek and sudden flurry of drums bludgeon in and full scale warfare has started. Vocals are rabid and gibbering and the tight glistening guitar work is excellent. This suddenly ends as Allégorie is a bit of an extended intro in essence but then ‘Disjonction’ rumbles in with a tank like drum battery and scything guitars whiplashing away. Not that I can interpret the French vocals but it is evident just looking at the group’s websites that they are another band not revelling at the glory of war but contemptuously spitting in the face of it and all the futility and death it causes. That said, musically it is spot on with barbed menace exploding and spiteful vocals that fit in perfectly with similar assaults from the likes of Marduk and Endstille. Some of the guitar sounds raise eyebrows on ‘De lumière’ and seem slightly familiar. Is that an Emperor like swagger there? It’s very brief but instantly recognisable before the track settles into a weighty mid-paced bombardment.
It’s quite a complex album all said and it has taken quite a few spins to get totally into the 8 war hymns on it and feel ready to put a review together. It has a fair bit of depth and is not likely to be one of those albums that wears out its welcome in a hurry. At times it flies past in a windswept fury and at others it beds in with sombre, grim determination waiting for the next assault to cleave in. Although moments of respite are brief they are highly atmospheric and tinged with futility and a sense of loss. It’s on ‘Dans Ma Chair’ that those squealing Emperor signatures ‘flesh’ out and again it felt like a somewhat clever sort of tribute being played momentarily. It’s full pelt to the end with the drumming allowing no time for comrades to fall at the wayside or get caught in barbed wire. The final hammer in the coffin sees ‘Digression’ bristling away and firing on all cylinders (and it’s probably just as well as I’m running out of clichés).
There’s a lot of good bands coming out the seething underbelly of the French resistance and Azziard are certainly another to add to the list of them and are well worth checking out.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
https://www.facebook.com/azziard
Leave a Reply