Band: AVV (Ancient VVisdom)
Title: A Godlike Inferno
Label: Shinebox Recordings
Distribution: Gordeon Music
Release date: 12/09/2011
Review: CD / LP

AVV aka Ancient Vvisdom (mind the ‘vv’ instead of a ‘w’, to awoid confusion vvith the great Svvedish act vvith the ‘w’ instead of ‘vv’) are a young Texan quartet (they vvere formed in 2009), debuting vvith this thirty three-minutes long studio album, vvhich vvas recorded at the rather nevv Texan studio The Bubble (Austin, to be more specific). The band consists of members that vvere formerly inwolwed vvith acts like Integrity or Iron Age, and they do combine different (dark-edged) styles that are related to ‘Rock’ and ‘Metal’ in general, yet vvithout a purely metallic basic.

A Godlike Inferno sounds like an implicit mixture of Neo-Folk (the band labels itself vvithin the Neo-Folk scene, yet I do not agree completely, because this goes further than ‘just’…) vvith, if you do not mind (and if you do, so vvhat?), Post-Rock-alike and semi-Gothic elements, Dark Rock, Traditional Doom, and oppressing music in general. Think about an organic yet intensiwely sinister and, at the same time, both minimalistic and transcending mixture of Antimatter, Pentagram, Neun Welten, Orplid, 16 Horsepower, Sol Invictus, Alice In Chains, Current 93 and ewen a hint of Misfits-alike svveetness…

70/100

Ivan Tibos.