The occult has a questionable history in Rock music, as it is typically used for window dressing with little substance behind it. 

Germany’s  Aivvass seems somewhat earnest in its exploration of the topic. Spiritual Archives (Darkness Shall Rise Productions) is a collection of their two EPS, but they work together pretty seamlessly, so it feels like they were meant to comprise an album together. 

Things start with a more Death In June-like Neo-Folk before distorted guitar creeps in with a melancholy throb. The vocals are a low monstrous growl, setting the band at the intersection of Doom and Death Metal. Gloom is cast over the song through the melodies haunting the background of the song; sung vocals seep into the mix to create a chanted ambiance. 

They return to the Neo-Folk sound going into the song “Baphomet.” This time some vocals fall somewhere between a whisper and a moan. If you were a metalhead in the nineties, it might bring to mind old Tiamat. 

However, the band does not take things in the expected route, creating more tension by not stepping on the distortion and circling the more atmospheric folk sound. Diving deeper into the malaise of depression on “Lucifer,” this is counterbalanced as like Lucifer they bring more light sonically. This creates a more shoegazing sound, and expands the overall dynamic range of the album. If you just played the instrumental track “Crucifixion,”you might mistake this for Stone Roses without the vocals.

“Witchcraft” is the album’s best song. It blends the polarities of what this band does most effectively. It hits you with a wall of heavy in a very syncopated pound. When the vocals return with a lower growl, they are set back in the mix and bathed in reverb. The chanted vocal offers a call and response with the harsher vocal. “Cremation of  Control” finds them back in the more Death In June strum of surreal folk. 

They close the album with a sludgy cover of Pentagram‘s “The Ghoul.” They employ both sung and snarled vocals to tackle this song. The guitar carries a more fuzzed-out tone than Pentagram‘s original. 

This album is a solid slab of emotional Doom that finds its heaviness in the darkness created rather than just relying on riffs, which is where the magic lies rather than in the imagery surrounding it. In this way, their occult studies have paid off. 

After all, magic deals with focus and intention and using ritual as the psychodrama to connect an emotional response from the subconscious to cause an energetic shift. They accomplish this with their instruments, as was their intention, or else they would have just made another Metal album, so using the restraint to serve the songs and form this experience sets them apart from the pack. 

If you are looking for an album that is heavier in its ambiance than it is Heavy Metal, this should be your pick. 

Buy the album here:
https://darknessshallrise.de/product-category/dsr-releases/?v=7516fd43adaa

9 / 10
WIL CIFER