��� These guys seemed to catch some of the blowback from Ghost and their surge in mainstream popularity, falling under a similar shadow of suspicion by those who saw this sort of occult posturing as an empty bid for street cred and black metal-esque mystique. While there's certainly been a vomitous number of bands that have climbed aboard the black magic wagon in recent years, Austin, TX band Ancient VVisdom seemed a little more legit than most. Maybe the fact that they didn't sound like the umpteenth Coven clone was enough for me to dig what I heard on albums like A Godlike Inferno, and the set of theirs I caught a few years back when they were on tour with Enslaved hammered me pretty nicely. Formed by former members of Integrity and Iron Age, Ancient VVisdom are one of the more original bands to come out of that "occult rock" resurgence of recent years, their early albums centering around an acoustic-based sound that offered an interesting mix of heavy metal chug, gothy acoustic folk, big-riff rock and a bit of those weird Holy Terror references.
��� On the band's latest album Sacrificial, their stuff sounds more anthemic and accessible than ever. This batch of songs is about as catchy as anything on Ghost's latest, but much of the folkiness of past VVisdom releases now replaced with more overt doom-laden heaviness. They've always had elements of doom metal in their music, but on Sacrificial, the acoustic guitars are almost totally swapped out for crunchier, morose riffage that takes this in the direction of more straightforward metallic rock. I miss that folky quality from previous albums, but as far as songs go, this is still pretty great. The sinister strum of the acoustic guitar at the beginning of introductory instrumental "Rise of an Ancient Evil" quickly gives way to slow, plodding riffage and layered guitars, with eerie choral voices swelling up and giving this piece a strange atmospheric power that sort of feels like something that could have been on a mid-80s Italian horror movie soundtrack. That metallic heaviness sticks around as the album moves into the old-school doom of "Chaos Will Reign", those clear, keening vocals rising over the gloomy chug and sluggish, solemn weight of the music, but like most of the songs on the album, it eventually moves into a wickedly catchy chorus that elevates this into serious earworm territory. They've always had this accessible quality to their songs, but songs like this one are borderline radio-friendly. Passages of moody acoustic strum and harmonized singing turn into a kind of shadow-drenched pop, coiled with the band's overtly satanic and death-drenched imagery. The rest of this stuff is equally infectious, "The Devil's Work" dropping power-pop hooks into the brooding black-magic doom, and a lot of this reminds me a bit of the similarly pop-damaged UK doom-rock band Winters, but even catchier and more rooted in a classic psych-tinged hard rock sound. Of course, this album does little to shake the Ghost comparisons that have followed these guys from the beginning, but there's also a distinctly American feel with this as well; there are several moments on Sacrificial where I'm reminded of certain strains of 90s era post-hardcore, as if one of those old Deep Elm Records outfits had been enfolded within the black wings of Saint Vitus and Pentagram. Like most of the bands that Ancient VVisdom get lumped in with, this stuff will probably grate on heavy metal purists, but I'm digging their infernal, ear-friendly hard rock.