Agonia Black Vomit - "Cosmosatanic Kingdom" (Symbol of Domination/Murdher Records, 2017)

Band: Agonia Black Vomit
Title: Cosmosatanic Kingdom
Genre: Black Metal
Year: 20th June 2017
Time: 42 min
Rating: 59/100













I confess: I decided to review the sophomore album of Agonia Black Vomit mostly because they comes from Rome Caput Mundi like me! Another reason is that Agonia Black Vomit is really a fantastic name, so, before to listen to this "Cosmosatanic Kingdom", I expected a blasting massacre of nuklear proportions able to kill all your fuckin' neurons! Instead, this CD released by the Belarussian label Symbol of Domination along with Murdher Rec (from Rome, too) show a strange and interesting approach to conceive the black metal music, also if it isn't so effective, as you'll read very soon.

In fact, "Cosmosatanic Kingdom" starts in a bad way with its first three songs. The problem is that they repeat basically the same things from start to finish and without offering a good intensity because they aren't characterized by effective climaxes able to seriously move the listeners. In addition, you have to consider that there is no human drummer but a drum-machine, so the songs sounds a little bit weak but this is also a personal taste of mine because you know that I hate so much the drum-machine that I should prefer to hear, at its place, a bad drummer.

In exchange, the musical visions of the mastermind Agonia deserves attention already starting from the opening track "Departure from Degrade". The pace of this song is mostly very slow (it becomes fast after 5 minutes but only for 30 seconds circa), the guitars are raw but melodic, the atmosphere recreated is depressive also thanks to minimalistic and funereal keyboards while, here and there, there are space sounds, so don't expect a kind of black metal easy to classify. The following song "Engines of Hate" is more furious also due to the presence of blast-beats but always offering some slowdowns with space vibes this time produced by a psychedelic lead guitar. At this point, it's important to underline that the same lead guitar is very used by Agonia but, for me, this another particular feature is exploited better in the other tryptich of song into this album.

I think that Agonia, in tracks called "Parallel Descanting Visions" (watch its video below), "The Peaceful Solitude" (here the basswork is great!) and "Alone", shows many of the potentialities of his project. These songs are developed thrugh unpredictable plots towards also very emotive climaxes. Often, these climaxes are caused by the brilliant and inventive interaction between the two (but sometimes even three!) guitars, that, in certain cases, chase each other to create original layered riffs while playing also some solos in tracks like "The Peaceful Solitude". The result of all this is that the three aforementioned numbers are amazing but...

...but, at the end, there is the ambitious final track "Symphony of Suffering". And I said "ambitious" because it lasts the beauty of 15 fukken minutes! But, unfortunately, this tour de force, for me, sounds too disjointed and confusing without the touches of real genius, unpredictability and intensity of songs like "Alone". Despite this not so good result, there is need to appreciate the courage of this black metal musician to play a track with a lenght to not undervalue in every way as "Symphony of Suffering".

So, this "Cosmosatanic Kingdom" is really fuckin' strange. On a hand, we have three disappointing tracks like the first three ones. On the other hand, we have other three songs that are really remarkable. But finally, the final number could be decisevely better than now. Hence, the rating, unfortunately, is low but without forgetting that we are talking about a one-man black metal band with many ideas and courage...hoping, anyway, that the future new stuff will be in the vein of "The Peaceful Solitude" or "Alone". And meanwhile, watch below the promotional video of a very new song called "The Time's Flies"!

Thanks to Aleksey of Satanath Records to sending me this album!

Tracklist:

1 - Departure from Degrade
2 - Engines of Hate
3 - The Acid Soil
4 - Parallel Descanting Visions
5 - The Peaceful Solitude
6 - Alone
7 - Symphony of Suffering

Line-up:

Agonia - vocals/guitars/bass/drum-machine/keyboards/effects

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/agoniablackvomit/
BandCamp: https://agoniablackvomit.bandcamp.com/
Symbol of Domination: http://satanath.com/sodp
Murdher Records: http://murdherrecords.wixsite.com/murdherrecords