Pro-tape with pro-printed cover limited to 100 hand-numbered copies.
Recorded in Studios Sonica January Year 96.
Tracks B2, B3 are bonus tracks.
From time to time it is good to take a journey into the past. The terminal stop today is Mexico where Avzhia are already waiting with their pretty generically titled debut “Dark Emperors”. Sure, in 1996 the second wave of black metal had already piled up high. But today, 27 years later, we can consider “Dark Emperors” as one of the early works of the sub genre, especially when we are talking about Latin-America. In 1996, people all over the world either copied the ice orgies of the Norwegians, who had obviously gone crazy, or they were extremely individual. Avzhia belonged to the latter. Maybe it is sometimes an advantage to be far away from epicentre of a new trend.
Admittedly, I love the simple artwork, because it reflects the aesthetics of black metal perfectly. It also reminds me a bit of Dimmu Borgir’s “For all tid”, but don’t worry, Avzhia’s debut sounds much better than the first albums of those guys who turned from musicians to clowns. The intro picks up the atmosphere of the artwork with patter of horses, wind, dramatic keyboards, timpani and this kind of usual stuff. Only King Diamond is missing. Anyway, it marks a great, stage-setting and promising entry. Yet it goes without saying that it's the regular songs which decide the weal and woe of the album. The following epics “Shadow of the Forest” and “Black Prayer” leave no wishes unfulfilled. The thrilling arrangements are just one of their many advantages.
The vocals are partly very strange, but still very cool. Especially the beginning of “Shadow of the Forest” delivers some very distant chanting which gives the song an extremely personal touch. However, there are also vocals of the more ordinary kind. The throaty and malignant singing does not lack charisma and expression. Nevertheless, the best element of the songs are the fascinating melody lines, the interplay of keyboards, guitars and bass and the way how they create dramatic, dynamic, triumphant and intensive pieces. In particular their intensity is no matter of course in view of the quite idiosyncratic, rather foggy sound. I suspect a low budget. Anyway, precisely this unconventional sound image lends Avzhia their nearly unique appearance. Sometimes Darkenhöld comes to my mind, because several sequences emanate a medieval aura, but in 1996 Darkenhöld were not even a distant thought in the universe. Summing up, the first two tracks are simply perfect. Their outstanding quality justifies every second of their opulent playtimes. By the way, the Inferna Profundus reissue identifies the intro and the first track as one song.
The next songs, “Immortal Spirit” and the title track, follow the approach of the somewhat convoluted, but never labyrinthine openers. They are also great and suffer only from little details. “Immortal Spirit”, for example, has a part where the keyboards are too dominant. No big deal, of course. Much more relevant is that the material sounds lively, sinister, pretty original and ambitious. It is only with “Empire” that there is a certain break. This elegiac number with omnipresent keyboards is more of an outro than a full song – and given this fact, its playtime of seven minutes appears questionable.
Finally, the here reviewed edition of the album holds an appendix, consisting of the songs of the “Ancient Blasphemies” split with Xibalba Itzaes. Their production is on demo level; true underground inhabitants peek around the corner. Honestly speaking, the mix prevents an intensive sound event. The excessively designed songs themselves indicate the potential of the band and its weakness for interwoven, complex but not progressive forms. Variable vocals, comparatively thin guitars and a lot of diabolic passion bring back the spirit of the Mexican subculture from 1996 – that’s pretty cool and interesting, but in no way essential. Either way, I enjoyed this 63 minutes long trip into the past.
Sample:
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