AN AXIS OF PERDITION

Re-emerging from portentous slumber in 2019, AN AXIS OF PERDITION are a band (or, more accurately, duo) with an illustrious, if bile-stained, past. Shrewd observers of the metal underground in the early 2000s will recall their initial efforts with a combination of admiration and horror. Ostensibly rooted in industrial black metal, the band originally known as AXIS OF PERDITION (and later THE AXIS OF PERDITION — there's a philosophy seminar in there somewhere!) dissolved the flimsy walls between genres just as skillfully as they made the boundary between so-called objective reality and nightmarish, mind-ravaging hyper-reality disintegrate. In particular, their 2005 album, "Deleted Scenes From The Transition Hospital" was an abominable psycho-noir forged from blistering, bleak, machine-driven extremity and suffocating, tar-thick ambience wrung from the depths of diseased minds. Genuinely unsettling in a way that most metal could never hope to be, it marked Michael Blenkarn and Brooke Johnson out as authentic mavericks, operating above and beyond metal's narrow expectations. Further ventures in aural terror followed, including two brilliantly confounding concept albums — "Urfe" and "Tenements (Of The Anointed Flesh)" — and, since reconvening in 2019, a flurry of digital-only releases that each added oppressive layers to the Brits' twisted vision. All of that was paving the way for this.

Their first full-length effort in nearly 14 years, "Apertures" is the most well-rounded and ill-mannered product of AN AXIS OF PERDITION's turbulent hive mind yet. Roughly divided between barbarous, sinister metal tracks and the mesmerizing ooze of dark, desolate ambience, it retains the willful weirdness of earlier works and simply provides it with a wider and brighter canvas to adorn. There were times when this band seemed determined to embrace obscurity without reservation, but here their unique take on black metal has sprouted fresh musical wings and a more accessible ethos. On the likes of "Metempsychosis" and "Chant Of The Worshipful Prey", cracked remnants of early EMPEROR are rendered unrecognizable by the steady churn of mutant chord sequences and the disorienting rattle of propulsive programmed drums. On the crucifying darkness of "Private Acts Of Abnegation", AN AXIS OF PERDITION languish in the horrified, dripping stench of an abattoir, as epic grandeur collides with the brutal reality of a falling cleaver. In terms of atmosphere, "Apertures" is more COIL and THROBBING GRISTLE than anything frosty and Scandinavian, but the scabrous essence of Northern European black metal festers and throbs within every disquieting note. Dark ambient rituals like "Flesh Underfoot" tell their own harrowing stories. The disarmingly melodic mid-tempo pomp of "I Am Odium" tells another.

This is a deeply idiosyncratic and joyously perverse piece of work, from two of the darkest souls around. The nightmares are real.