Urging into ever darkening territories…
Review by Jason Guest
Release date: 20 April 2015
Dragging us through the labyrinthine underworld of rituals, incantations and desolation bestrewn with electronic passages, cinematic sounds and atmospheric weight, with their debut full length Divination Labyrinths (reviewed here), Greek collective Kult of Taurus delivered a dark and menacing delight. Two years later with all but a split release with Erevos Aenaon (reviewed here) featuring their early material in the interim, they have been working on Adversarial Paths: The Sinister Essence, an album that sees them urging into the ever darkening territories encountered in their early days.
Taking a distinct turn towards the old school, gone may be the electronica and the cinematic downplayed but still present are the atmospheric, the sinister and the beautifully brutal. With every riff, every beat and every utterance is hammered into place, Kult of Taurus have both embraced and pushed black metal’s primitive qualities to their tormented extremities. There’s the all-consuming wrath that fuels Sarpedon’s baleful vocals, there are the eternal fires of hatred scorched into every coarse riff, there’s the intertwining of the jarring and disconcerting in structures that plot ever unpredictable paths, and there’s the death/black-metal grooves carved into the stone-like atmospherics. A potent and raw mix indeed.
Adversarial Paths: The Sinister Essence strips their sound back to their raw roots. But by shedding what they presumably consider to be superfluous, Kult of Taurus have put themselves at risk of becoming one among the many that emulate the old school vibe. With Divination Labyrinths, the band delivered an album that benefited greatly from the differences it embraced. The electronic and cinematic elements were more than simple gimmicks. They added and augmented the character, the depth, and the individuality of the album. The twists and turns are here, as is the musicianship, but somehow it lacks that grip that their first album had. A good, even a sometimes great album, but far from what was anticipated.
6 out of 10
Track Listing:
- Channelling Consciousness
- Black Embrace
- Edafio I
- The Piercing Conjunctions of the Sinister
- Cordially Baneful
- Through Lunar Wombs
- Vibrating Crossroads
- Arch of Exceedance
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