Akercocke – Renaissance in Extremis (2017)

January 21, 2018

It should feel like I’ve been waiting since the dawn of time for new Akercocke material, but with the Antichrist Imperium and the incredibly excellent Voices, my fix has been kept somewhat at bay. However, to the die hard Akercocke fanatic, I imagine this is somewhat akin to taking methadone instead of heroin, so it is an enormous sigh of relief that I can now lose myself in the blissful, all-encompassing abyss of the group’s satanic, blackened death metal once more.

Akercocke feel fresh and revitalized by their break, which is a massive relief, what with a lot of bands “coming back” as pale shadows of themselves, often motivated by cash. The sound here is a lot more refined, where the frenetic chaos of earlier Scanlan-like tracks can now enjoy the breathing room of the sprawling production work akin to the Deeds… era, or later Voices material (yes, Scanlan was on Choronzon, but despite how hard that record hit, it was a very dense production).

Akercocke have carved their own niche in the intricate world of progressive death metal, and now that I’ve listened to this record several times over and really let it set in, it genuinely feels like they never really went away. Just like, don’t go anywhere soon, yeah guys?

Stand out tracks: “Disappear”, “First To Leave The Funeral”, “A Final Glance Back Before Departing” and the epic “A Particularly Cold September”.

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