Antediluvian/Adversarial - Initiated In Impiety As Mysteries

Because I’m relatively new to the modern metal scene, there has not been many releases that I felt excited about so far, but I can see that the tide is definitely changing. Nuclear War Now! Productions have an incredible roster, consisting of bands which mainly devote themselves to the darker aesthetics of death metal, and in the near past, bands like Weregoat or Wrathprayer have clutched me with their woeful hooks and pulled me down into abysmal and fathomless pits, fuelled by constant anger and fury, and their most recent offering, a two way split played by two of the most deadly Canadian bands has crashed onto my shore, and the moment I saw which bands were making it up, I literally felt a warm, sublime wetness in my pants.

Antediluvian and Adversarial are two very cunning black/death acts that have proved themselves in the year 2011 more than many people would have really expected. While Adversarial’s ‘’All Idols Fall Before The Hammer’’ was speedy train full of airy confessions of splintering death metal, juicy, carnal and ultimately destructive, ‘’Through The Cervix Of Hawaah’’ was a strong redolent of Portal and Impetuous Ritual, yet, it was still much praised for its eerie and corrupted nature, bettering the listener into crumbling bits with the drowsy grooves of a darkened pendulum swing, slowly exterminating and vomiting relentless evil. Both bring the best of their sound to the table and join them under one banner, deviating little from their previous style, on this split.

The first half of the split belongs to Adversarial, spewing forth three hymns of malicious evil and completely perplexing speed, utterly frenzied and eruptive.  Both bands play their own distinct style of naturally evil-bred death metal, but because they grasp the largely consuming notion in a way that they make almost tangible, both their formulas somehow crash and cross at some point, and with half the product belonging to Adversarial and half of it belonging to Antediluvian, you get a much saturating portion of each band’s inventive style of presenting cantankerous evil. Adversarial’s material flows much more viscously than the other half, as the band unleashes a devastating barrage of gritty energetic and simply pulverizing riffs, overflowing with catchiness and cosmic reverb drenched horror. The super fast discharge of riffs follow each other like a spiralling vortex of brutal terror, streaming to the surface at some point, yet still keeping its existence robust in underground territory, and the mass exploitation of inhuman snarls and constantly grinding tremolos are supported by both a crispy production that allows the cathartic vigor to replenish itself repeatedly and a massive, beat laden pursuit, attached to the riffs, culminating devastation and monstrosity as the train passes. Adversarial’s side of the split, ‘’Leviathan’’, is simply cunning, razor sharp and laden with terrifically composed queer chord sequences, summing to be a most efficient collection of three songs.

Antediluvian’s side of the split, which is the actual reason I came here, is a direct delivery of what was in ‘’Through The Cervix Of Hawaah’’, an oppressive, inconsistent and non-accessible cloud of sickening blasphemy, a shower of constantly diffusing gobs of shadowed evil. Constant buzzing and crushing evil is what dominates ‘’Lucifer’’, their side of the split, and yet, in a way, Antediluvian’s brand of suffocating blackened death metal, is just as effective as Adversarial’s, despite the extremely slow passages blocking some of their cunning and shrewd usage of evil putting them a back the second half. Either way, this split is no competition, only and intense and suspense expression of unholy evil. One thing that really makes Antediluvian’s music a traumatizing experience is that they like to slightly experiment with even more bizarre techniques, and in the end each song possesses a cloudy aura of cosmic reverb and befouling bleakness. Each song is encompassed by megalithic columns of depressive aura which is just as pungent as the evil one, and believe me, Antediluvian thrive the atmosphere present and the atmosphere develops in to something utterly inhuman, and there are truly very few band which can manage to do such wonders with atmosphere.‘’Force Of Suns Of Adversary’’ is simply an excellent beginning for ‘’Lucifer’’ swaying and swaggering in mid paced tempos, dancing ponderously around a pitch-black pyre, while the next track, ‘’Dissolution Spires’’ expands the atmosphere and draws the listener into a more spacious ground, and spurting out a vicious cluster of rapid riffs, but the true Magnum Opus of the B side of the split is ‘’Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I Am That I Am)’’, a repulsive, intensified and inhumating lump of inundating density, swallows you and sucks you in with its vacuum like hole, opening the gates to a void of ethereal darkness within mere seconds.

‘’Initiated In Impiety As Mysteries’’ lives up for its name in every way possible. It’s the most intricate and explosive expression of impious inhumanity, for such an incredible release, it would be best if we granted merits and accolades to the band, as it is the best thing we can do. Adversarial resembles the sheer complexity and mind boggling prowess of impiety, while Antediluvian, which appealed to me more than its peer, is the dark, shallow and bleak overtone of mystery, an abysmal aspect, camouflaged as something almost entirely different. Simply put, this split is one of the best black/death releases the year has offered so far, and in such profane glory against all things orthodox and holy, it’s impossible not to lose yourself in what these two hellhound’s have created; a bleak void of evil, absolutely grasping and all-consuming. 

Highlights:

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I Am That I Am)

Dissolution Spires

Swirling Chaos That Swallows Horizons 

Spiraling Towards the Ultimate End

Rating: 92%