header_image
ANTIKATECHON  Chrisma Crucifixorum  CD   (Rage In Eden)   13.98


The second album of high quality Italian dark ambient from Antikatechon, with that undercurrent of liturgical mystery that seems to inhabit a lot of the Italo deathdrift I've been listening to lately. On Chrisma Crucifixorum, sole member Davide Del Col crafts six lengthy subterranean driftscapes that combine meditative drones and darker, more malevolent recesses of electronic blackness, beginning with opener "Altaria Expiationis". This track sets the stage with a swirling midnight mass soundtrack comprised of simple, haunting melodic figures that loop eternally in a dank fog of cavernous reverb and murky rumblings of tectonic power. The music drifts slowly, shifting in and out of clarity, that eerie moaning melody eventually being swallowed up by great gusts of abyssal wind and distant squalls of grinding deep-earth activity. Bits of delicate acoustic guitar glint through the fog, then slowly shift into a gorgeously shadowcast bit of orchestral, almost Tangerine Dream-esque synthdrift. On darker, heavier tracks like "Delubra Vexatorum", Antikatechon drifts off further into a richly layered underworld where smears of amorphous minor key melody and streaks of burning dawnlight penetrate the gloom, revealing a teeming mass of subterranean sonic activity, clanking chains and reverberating stone whipped into a vast fog of sound, howling hymn-like chants almost totally obscured by the sheer power of the rumbling lower frequencies, then billow skyward into swirling clouds of shimmery organ loops. The rest of the disc shifts between these two aspects, moving from stirring cinematic wonder into ominous subterranean drift, where monstrous clanking rhythms echo out of the depths of "Violatio Sigillorum" and lead into something akin to a cross between latter-day Tangerine Dream and the Cold Meat sound, and "Convivium Vulturum"'s ghastly dungeon drones evolve into the sound of rhythmic metallic clanking and distant percussion, keening horns smeared across the horizon, the sound evoking images of massive infernal machinery coming to life in the bowels of some medieval cathedral. Good stuff; fans of such Cold Meat-aligned dark ambient acts as Coph Nia, Desiderii Marginis and Raison d'�tre should check it out. Comes in digipack packaging.


Track Samples:
Sample :
Sample :
Sample :