Phazm - Antebellum Death 'N Roll
Osmose Productions - OPCD 184 - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
In this review, your faithful scribe tries to get his head around an album from a French quartet who blend mid-tempo black metal in the vein of later
Darkthrone and
Khold with a
Motorhead-esque groove and grind and occasional death metal moments. Oh yeah, and there are ambient mood pieces with folkish interludes, balls-out rock and roll solos, and songs with a distinctly party-ish vibe. In fact, in places, this is the cheeriest album I've heard from the Osmose camp.
The two mood pieces,
'Damballah' and
'Burarum', are undoubtedly the weak points of this album - they're nice and suitably ethereal and all, but they detract from the otherwise rocking tone of the album. Thankfully, the actual songs are a lot more interesting - from the menacing, mid-tempo trawls of
'So White, So Blue, So Cold' and
'Decay' to the faster-paced and more energetic cuts like
'My Darkest Desire' and the rampaging (but bouncy) opener
'How To Become A God',
Antebellum Death 'N Roll retains the listener's interest throughout, balancing the elements that make up their sound with considerable skill and lending their compositions a fairly unique style.
So, overall, an interesting and well put together album that misfires when it delves into experimental mood pieces, but excels when staying firmly within the rocking black metal style that the band has developed and, it seems, near perfected. Well worth a look.
7/10
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Phazm's Official Website
Osmose Productions' Official Website
