If you're hip to the Italian label Aeternitas Tenebrarum Music Foundation, then you're probably a fan of the more experimental and progressive fringes of European black metal, something the label has been focused on from early on. While this 2010 debut from 11 As In Adversaries is further removed from black metal than most of the bands on the label, it's easy to see why it found a home here alongside the likes of Visthia, Tal'set, Disiplin and Semen Datura. Featuring two of the members of the French black metal cult Glorior Belli and apparently originally intended for that band until they realized that it would be better served by releasing it under a completely different band name, 11 As In Adversaries infuses a bit of BM influence into its angular heavy prog, though those black metal elements are generally petty subtle, taking form as violent blastbeat drumming and bits of evil, metallic riffing. What 11 As In Adversaries really sound like is a sinister, slightly blackened math-metal outfit, with lots of spiky, spidery guitar work and passionate sung/yowled vocals, off-kilter rock guitar leads, and winding complex songwriting.

There's a discordance and off-kilter quality to the riffs that'll remind you of Voivod's later work cica Angel Rat/The Outer Limits, but I also hear the sound of 90's metallic post-hardcore in here as well, faint traces of Quicksand and (especially) Iceburn in the chunky melodic riffs and "rockier" moments. But like the newer Glorior Belli stuff, this stuff really swings, fusing together blazing psychedelic guitar shred and some huge jagged riffs and smatterings of jazziness in the rhythm section. Some other tracks delve into experimental electronic music ("A Stealthy Freedom"), and there's a guest appearance from Shining front man Kvarforth, who lends his gnarled, deranged croon to "The Night Scalp Challenger". Most of this sounds to me like post-hardcore filtered through the blackened weirdness of Ved Buens Ende though, especially on the catchy, ferocious closer "Verses From Which To Whirl" where the lush guitar-heavy sound is fused to killer blackened riffs and the most aggro drumming on the album that finally spins out into a cyclone of blastbeats towards the end.

Definitely something different from the ATMF camp, but not without it's moments of savagery that should appeal to fans of the label's more left-field offerings, as well as those digging the recent spate of post-hardcore/black metal

influenced bands like Deafheaven and Celeste.