AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AVSLUT — “TYRANNI”

 

The Swedish black metal band Avslut waste no time revealing a big part of their mission on their new album Tyranni — which is to flood your bloodstream with adrenaline. On the title track, which opens the album, they hurl themselves (and their listeners) into an electrifying full-throttle assault, no-holds-barred, no-mercy-shown. The impact of the blistering drum work, the ripping, blaring, and jolting chords, and the flame-throwing vocals is immediately electrifying.

But while the band relentlessly scorch the senses with the unhinged ferocity of their attack, that opening song vividly reveals another aspect of their harrowing mission — the incorporation of intense melodies into their barbarous onslaught.

Osmose Productions will release Tyranni on November 29th, but you won’t have to wait that long to experience it because we’re premiering a full stream today.

 

 

While no one would label Avslut a symphonic black metal band, their music often displays the kind of formidable power and sweeping grandeur of an orchestra in the throes of a breathtaking crescendo, as well as the explosive booms and spine-shaking jolts that brings to mind a timpani section operating in overdrive.

The almost panoramic melodies are particularly intense, not just because they tend to wholly envelop the senses but also because their emotional resonance is so dramatic — so full of fear and despair, of terrible turmoil and haunting grief. The music penetrates as well as surrounds, striking like spears as well as swirling and swarming, and sometimes sinking under the skin like a bath of acidic poison.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the band’s talent for crafting such unsettling but compelling melodies might be  revealed most vividly during the tracks (such as the wrenching “Allt Förgås” and the haunting “Den Eviga Flamman”) where Avslut slow their frenzied and ravaging momentum and really devote themselves single-mindedly (and sorcerously) to creating an atmosphere of calamity, pain, and desolation, or of otherworldly peril.

It bears repeating that Avslut are highly capable of weaponizing their music — setting loose stunning cyclones of flame and creating war zones of blasting force and rampant viciousness, but there’s really no song on the album that’s lacking in emotionally gripping melodies, and on most of them the band also very effectively change tempos in order to create changes of mood, without ever relaxing their iron grip on your attention.

In two words, the experience of Tyranni is thrilling and memorable… so take some deep breaths before you run this gauntlet, and be prepared to let the music live with you for far longer than a single listen.

 

Osmose will release Tyranni in LP, CD, and digital formats, and all are available for pre-order now:

PRE-ORDER:
https://www.osmoseproductions.com/
https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/tyranni

AVSLUT:
https://www.facebook.com/1008Avslut1008