Black metal has a cold, pernicious heart and, if my blood soaked ears and ruptured brain cells are anything to go by, I may just have strayed too close to its beating core. Imagine Aosoth on speed – three of its current and former members are the evil geniuses behind VI – and a thousand assorted riffs unleashed from a box that makes Pandora’s look like a tin of Quality Street. VI’s De Praestigiis Angelorum files neatly into the ‘what the fuck just happened’ camp. An emotionless rush of adrenaline drenched tremolo riffs and battering percussion.
Things have moved on significantly since 2008’s similarly titled EP De Praestigiis Daemonum which was far more grainy with distortion and in that respect more attuned to Aosoth and Antaeus. This relies on the same breathless pace with sharper production – which suits the utterly exhilarating rapture with which this is delivered all the better.
Dissonant, layered guitars buzz around speakers like a swarm of wasps; clipped and unsettling chords; rasping insistent vocals constantly urging onto the brink of euphoria played out against a pervasive feeling of sickening vertigo. The cymbals snap like firecrackers on your synapses and you can pick out every single beat of the drums, which play an active, forefront role rather than just blurring into the background as is so often the case in this genre. VI take second wave Scandinavian darkness by the scruff of its neck and hurls it together with French dystopia at perfectly executed breakneck speed. So much speed and activity that tracks like ‘Le Terre Ne Cessera De Se Consumer’ deliver with such forceful impact you might almost find yourself in mild shock.
Even when things begin to slow down briefly around track five you still get the feeling you’re witnessing a master class in tremolo picking and some truly stunning drums that seem to match the madness perfectly without descending into a wall of blast beats. A part of me wonders if the clarity and with which this is delivered might actually be enough to put off some hardcore fans. What’s more, melody has not been abandoned and ground into the dirt. As well as the obvious reference points from the French scene – Deathspell Omega, and the obvious Aosoth and Antaeus – there’s definitely a hint of Taake’s darkly euphoric side here and a little bit of the raging blitzkrieg focus of more recent Marduk. But there’s also a full-pelt death metal urgency to this that makes VI harder to pin down than such throwaway associations.
The track ‘Il est trop tard pour rendre gloire… (the full track title is far too long for me to plant in this review but the first words translate to ‘It is too late for glory…) has a very martial feel while others like ‘Voilr Le Homme…’ simply mount an attack on your earlobes. But it’s all overlayed by drug-fueled French malevolence. All VI does is confirm to me that everything the Aosoth collective touches turns to obsidian gold. De Praestigiis Angelorum is gripping from beginning to end and delivered with such energetic ferocity that at times you almost feel out of breath.
After a year or two when I’ve been genuinely disappointed with releases from some of my favourite bands and their side projects, I feel VI have arrived to give me a pat on the back – or should that be a knife between the shoulder blades. This album is an experience not to be missed.
(9/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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