AN AXIS OF PERDITION – Apertures

vote
7.5

• Bands:
  THE AXIS OF PERDITION
• Duration: 00:47:30
• Available from: 12/13/2024
• Label:

• Apocalyptic Witchcraft

After a long hiatus lasting over a decade (at least if you look at the full-lengths), (An) Axis of Perdition break the silence with “Apertures”, an album that seems to emerge from a neglected corner of the extreme underground. This work, precisely the first full-length since “Tenements (Of the Anointed Flesh)”, does not attempt to replicate the abrasive chaos that defined the beginnings of the British project, presenting itself instead as a more stratified, enveloping and certain verses aware. Yet, the sick and disturbing spirit that animated the first part of the discography has not completely disappeared: it has simply changed (temporarily?) shape, becoming a more meditative and oblique incarnation.
If the early 2000s had seen the band as pioneers of an alienating and claustrophobic industrial black metal, with works such as “Physical Illucinations in the Sewer of Xuchilbara… (The Red God)” or “Deleted Scenes from the Transition Hospital” which had placed the foundations of a dark cult on a par with the first horrendous cries of Anaal Nathrakh, today, in a panorama that increasingly celebrates the intersection between extreme metal and experimentation, music of the duo chooses not to indulge too easily in avant-garde or progressive tendencies, instead becoming less contemptuous and more controlled. Still conceived in the context of a discography that has always challenged the boundaries between music and horror narrative, with industrial patterns that are not limited to acting as a simple background, but confirming themselves as an essential element that intertwines with the guitar to create an architecture intricate sound, the album represents an interesting step in the group's compositional development, combining those disturbing atmospheres that made their old works famous with a vaguely more harmonious and sinuous touch. The rhythms, less tortuous and sustained than in the past, are closer to certain more meandering solutions which, if we wanted to stay in England, could recall Void, while maintaining the characteristic sense of urban oppression, while the purely black metal explosions become less bombastic to favor an inexorable flow that leaves room for the construction of a more subtly poisonous mood. The controlled chaos of “Apertures” proves to be less intense on a physical level, but still manages to insinuate itself effectively into the recesses of the mind.
Songs like “I Am Odium” immediately become the spokesperson for this evolution: a track that alternates industrial dissonances with moments of melancholy melody, as if a glimmer of sick light emerged from the sound ruins. Similarly, “Metempsychosis” intertwines metallic feedback and refined rhythms, evoking a sense of timeless alienation.
However, the entire album is pervaded by a decadent aesthetic that recalls the rough charm of industrial England, the same that had made their early works iconic. The inspirations remain rooted in the imagery of “Silent Hill”, but the tone this time is less explicit and more nuanced, as if the shadows of the past had been absorbed by the dust.
Perhaps “Apertures” doesn't reach the heights of emotional devastation of the masterpieces of their discography, but that's not the point: Axis of Perdition's return is a mature exploration that prefers to build latent tension rather than attack head-on. It is an album that does not try to please or amaze with special effects or gratuitous virtuosity, but offers a sound experience that leaves its mark due to its concrete and at the same time particular character. An overall certainly successful return, capable of confirming the band as a voice out of the chorus in the panorama of British and non-British extreme metal.