In the flaming hot cauldron of the Second Wave of Black Metal, many different forms of playing the genre were conceived, and some of them became out of use. It’s because Black Metal became hardened in its limits once more, so subgenres gained defined limits. But some bands prefer to use those models that aren’t used anymore, as the North American quintet ANCIENT TORMENT, here with its first full-length, the shadowed and darkened “Follow the Echo of Curses”. Josh Welshman (mixing) and Dan Lowndes (mastering) worked on studio to give the band a classic brand on Black Metal’s sonorities: sharp, distorted and with lo-fi aspects, but allowing the band to express its musical ideas in an understandable form.

The graphic art of David Thiérrée (cover) and Ov Exvn Infërnvz (logo) states clear that these guys follow a classic path into Black Metal. As said above, the quintet works into a form o Black Metal with eerie melodic adornments on the guitars (and on some keyboards, as heard on “Spectre at the Crossroads”), with a good technical level (that evades exaggerations, but’s not as simple as it seems at first), charming rhythmic shifts and frantic shrieks. It’s influences in some ways by ROTTING CHRIST, DISSECTION, MAYHEM and ANCIENT in some moments, but’s not a copy. The album is filled with an energetic brand and a morbid appeal that will be hard to resist to.

“Hanging from a Dead Star”, “Spectre at the Crossroads”, “Sorrow Verses”, “Dejected Dreams Molested in Purgatory”, “Under the Guise of Virtue” and “Rotting Temperament” will impose a blackened grip on the fans, because they’re showing what Old School Black Metal fans expects from the bands of the genre, but always with some surprises. And imagine when these guys become a bit more (just a bit) mature into their own music. “Follow the Echo of Curses” is a kind of ‘must have’ item for Black Metal fans that misses the old days of the 90s. ANCIENT TORMENT is really a surprising name, indeed.