Band: Autumnblaze
Title: Perdition Diaries
Label: Prophecy Productions
Distribution: Bertus
Release date: 12/06/2009
Review: CD

The alternative German formation Autumnblaze split up in 2006, two years after their last album Words are Not What They Seem. Fortunately the band resurrected and with the new album, Perdition Diaries, they will surprise!
Eldron, Arisjel and Schwadorf (Nachtmahr, Empyrium, The Vision Bleak, Noekk, Sun Of The Sleepless) return to the early nineties roots of unconventional and unpolished Dark Metal. The album travels between extremes, going for both lyrics (the secrets behind hopes and dreams, love and loss) and music.
At the one hand the main part sounds much heavier than before. The Black Metal oriented songs vary in tempo (from pretty slow over mid-tempo to rather fast, like the opening riffs and last part in Haughtiness And Puerile Dreams) and approach (again those extremes and contradictory interactions), yet all with an old school-inspired atmosphere. Never before Autumnblaze did sound that heavy; the production is raw and grim, the performance intense and consistent. The close relationship with the early nineties’ Doom / Death-scene causes the coldness in these songs - listen for example to the oppressing Black / Death / Doom-hymn I Had To Burn This Fucking Kingdom, one of the highlights on this album.
At the other hand some tracks stand for atmospheric and mesmerizing Post-Rock or Alternative music. Empty House for example, with its melancholic start and epic second part, is a somewhat different track, or the emotional song Ways, with voice, piano and some flute (?).
This combination might seem somewhat strange. It isn’t easy either to fully ‘undergo’ Perdition Diaries without looking up a little surprised, yet at the same time it is a challenge. And at the end everything gets clear: It’s a sadistic as well as masochistic gift Autumnblaze return with such an album!
Duration: forty two minutes.

86/100

Ivan Tibos.