In my humble opinion, no other domain of deeply underground music channels the madness of spiritual devotion, the intensity of unconstrained zealotry, the casting off of self-advancing calculation, as well as black metal. And few other genres so powerfully capture our most deep-seated terrors or so vividly give form to unseen spirits.

Many bands try to channel manifestations of stellar burning chaos through the fashioning of simulacrums — creating reasonable facsimiles of the real thing, but straining too hard to manufacture the explosion of blood and mind that’s the hallmark of authentic blinding fervor and fear. Needless to say, finding music that combines such genuine blast-furnace intensity with mindfulness about details — which channels extravagant emotional inspiration and reaches with straining sinews for the divine, yet reflects a demanding meticulousness about nuances of sound — is a rarity.

But here we have that rarity, in God Without Name, the first album by Aoratos. The emotional effect of the music is astonishing, though at the same time that effect is no surprise at all given the people whose talents are behind the name Aoratos, which means unseen. Continue reading »