Time Signature The awakening...

Genre: black metal

This EP is the second release this year by the one-man black metal project Hrizg, who also released the full-length album "Anthems to Decrepitude" earlier this year.

While there are plenty of blastbeats and tremolo picking in the five tracks on the album, the overall impression is that it is leaning towards the midtempo to semi-heavy side, and we are ultimately dealing with middle-of-the-road black metal. "Inferno" is by no means innovative (but who says it has to be)), but is is not totally uninspiring either. There is some variation to the music, as Hrizg often goes from semi-heavy midtempo passages to blastbeats and back again - some might find this annoying, while others might appreciate it... I really haven't decided which side I am on yet.

What I really like about this release is that it is actually very melodic, as a lot of the riffage is darkly melodic due to the inherent harmonis in th echords, and Hrizg also make use of a lot of doom-ladden quasi-droning twin-guitar harmonies, which works really well.

The production is kind of raw and lo-fi, without being unbearable, and this way Hrizg stays true to the working ethos of black metal.

A solid, not too innovative, but not uninspiring, black metal release which emphasizes melody and melancholic desperation, "Inferno" would not be a complete waste of time, as it contains a lot of good stuff.

Vehemency Hrizg’s second full-length Anthems to Decrepitude is a hard bit to swallow for various reasons. This Spanish one-man horde has crafted a challenging, yet ultimately traditional black metal album off simple ideas that seem very uninviting at first, but only slowly starts to show signs of true potential.

Anthems to Decrepitude isn’t overly aggressive nor atmospheric black metal; the music resides somewhere between the two, at times blasting in great speeds not unlike Mayhem but mostly wandering in middlegrounds when it comes to the pace, the somewhat powerless production and minorly melancholic melodies helping in the creation of the interesting atmosphere that might seem dulling at first during the course of the 50-minute whole, but once again it must be said that this album takes its time to open.

In spite of not utilizing a lot of reverb, the album somehow sounds cavernous, as if recorded literally underground in a tomb or something along the lines. The mid-level growls of the vocalist are part of the reason why Anthems to Decrepitude sounds almost like an old school death metal album, but purely production-wise, that is.

It might seem that I’m implying that Anthems to Decrepitude is some kind of a hidden jewel of pure brilliance but that is not true either, as I can most certainly agree with other reviewers in that this 50-minute entity is a little too long and never musically varying enough - except an acoustic interlude like ”Invierno”. But in my humble opinion there are plenty of great ideas here that make the record a noteworthy release, clearly above an avarage old school black metal album for sure.