Gorgoroth - Antichrist
Review: To express further the romanticized moribundity of previous efforts Gorgoroth created an EP of monstrous proportions that despite its brevity expresses a viewfinder into the aging world of black metal, expanding the scope of its composition through complex tracks building conventional music pieces out of unconventional Gorgoroth musical language. At its base remaining the same the music is trancelike repetitive black metal with blasting beats, a screeching dementia on vocals, and pulsing guitar working deliberately simple riffs into evolving motifs in a masterpiece.
Where their debut ended in a melodic but chilling masterpiece of emotional confrontation Antichrist begins with the howl of a vengeful beast and the rising power of a song with nearly linear percussion under radically shifting, classically oppositional themes illustrating a beauty behind the raging chaos. Melody flickers in the hummingbirdstrum of the guitarist invoking minor notes and the catastrophic tails to extruded phrasing. Drumming gains a more energetic consistency for many of these songs, which range like mocking theatricals from the majestic (Gergtrollets Hevn) to the provocative and satyrical (Possed By Satan) and beyond into a series of melodic, urgent, and violent songs from under the masking of human souls. Of note are the grimly romantic Gorgoroth and the Burzum-esque ambient fade of Sorg, ending the album in obscure darkness.
Amazing riffs integrate these songs by sheer force but the design behind them is more compelling than the easy coincidence of similar black metal stomp rhythms. Nods to Immortal (first theme in Gorgoroth) and Burzum are more than just quotations but innovations using similar techniques. While not entirely compactly integrated or as outrageously evocative as the first album, "Antichrist" devours the weakness setting into black metal through a return to powerful compositional techniques and an unrelenting sense of content customization in each song - a foundational step toward another further greatness.