AZELL – ASTRALIS

(Andy Synn has some very nice words to say about the second album from Kentucky’s Azell)

I do love a good concept album, don’t you?

A lot of that I attribute to my dad’s influence, as he was (and is) a big Prog fan, which meant I grew up being viariously exposed to the likes of The Wall, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Quadrophenia.

And while some of my turn to Punk and Hardcore (and then Metal) in my teenage years may have been a form of rebellion against the outlandish excess and indulgent extravagance of these sorts of records, over time I’ve come to appreciate them as an art form more and more.

Note, however, that I explicitly said good concept albums, because there’s also been a lot of bad ones – from self-indulgent fantasy fan-fiction to shamelessly generic sci-fi schlock to badly-plotted (and barely coherent) political allegories, and everything in between – and it’s important to draw a distinction between the two.

Thankfully, however, the new album from sludge-slinging husband-and-wife duo Azell falls firmly on the former side of the divide.

Telling the story of two astronauts who, as the last survivors of a planet-killing catastrophe that destroy the earth, are cast out into an uncaring universe brimming with unnamable, inhuman horrors, these eleven tracks plumb the darkest, doomiest depths of the sludge-spectrum, their gargantuan, gravity-warping drop-F guitars and super-massive, black hole heavy bass constantly threatening to collapse under their own crushing weight.

Comparisons to the likes of Primitive Man, Conan, etc, have been floated (not least by the band themselves), and while these are definitely valid I find my own thoughts turning more to the likes of Lord Mantis and Phantom Winter (especially in the way that the vocals counterbalance both barbed, blackened howls and grisly, gruesome gutturals), due to the duo’s judicious deployment of morbidly majestic melody at key moments to counterbalance the album’s neutronium-level sonic density.

And, if you take nothing away from this review, it should be the understanding that Astralis is one hell of a heavy album, one which takes full advantage of its thick and hefty low-end to really grind you down over the course of just over fifty-five-and-a-half minutes, with the grandiose grimness of “Monolithic Terror”, the punishing, predatory prowl of “The Crumbling Facade” – which might just be my personal favourite track due to its near-perfect mix of pounding heaviness and piercing melodic hooks (especially towards the end) – and the unforgiving uber-doom of “Hostage to the Machine” all serving as particularly punishing highlights in my opinion.

Of course, the album’s overall length might be an issue for some listeners – the curse of the concept album is that you write for the length of the story you’re trying to tell, not necessarily for the optimum listening length – and I’ll admit that the two instrumental tracks, “Waves of Remembrance” and “Threads of Connection”, don’t seem strictly necessary to either the story or the album in general (though I do have a bit of a soft spot for some of the more sci-fi embellishments of the latter), but it’s difficult to know what (apart from the aforementioned instrumentals) you’d ever be able to cut without losing the densely dynamic flow of the record.

Because, make no mistake about it, Astralis is an album which moves and grooves, stomps and broods, with such an implacable sense of purpose and an irresistible sense of momentum that by the time the climactic monologue of synth-laden and saxophone-infused closer “Time Slows to Nothing” breathes its last, bitter gasp you’ll likely find yourself immediately craving a sequel just so you can find out how the story ends!