Have you ever thought what lies beyond the stars, and beyond the universe itself (if it's limited)? I have and it makes me feel uneasy. I am not alone with my thoughts. The 6th Abigor ascends into the stars and beyond them. And what is found? Evil, of course.

Abigor's previous album 'Channeling the Quintessence of Satan' (1999) was a total mindfuck and the experience of pretty chaotic black metal. 'Satanized...' has a clear production, but still it is chaotic, in a good way. The sound is raw and simple, typically Abigor-ish, actually very ugly and in-your-face (not much echo this time around) and doesn't sound 21st century. Abigor were influenced by Emperor (epicness, peculiarity, coldness and evil combined). Familiar sharp guitar tone is accompanied with heavier (or lower) rhythm guitar than on the previous releases from the band. Sometimes the riffing gets nicely thrashy, reminding me of older thrash legends (Abigor's 'In Memory' mini-CD from 2000 includes Kreator and Slayer covers). Therefore the songs stick better into a listener's brain. And I'm not complaining about that! Yeah, something like Voivod gone black... Not quite, but hopefully you catch my drift. This is not an easy ride, but one nasty trip and during a single song, the band travels through many a wormhole. Still, there are some "acoustic" parts where twisted atmospheres whirl around. The spacey feeling is accomplished with the synths and some truly low-tone hum, which add atmosphere, but still stay on the background. However, the drums are blunt, demo-level sound-qualitywise. which in the contrary do diminish the spacey feel at times.

Of course the satanic theme is present, as you can read in the title of the record. But also the word "cosmic" is there. These two are mixed and while I personally love sci-fi and all things space, I'm an atheist. Therefore the satanic part does not touch me. But hey, it's always healthy to fuck with all religions in this world! Wonderful works of H.P. Lovecraft are also used as an inspiration, and this gets two thumbs up from me. Vocals are harsh black-ish rasp for the biggest part, but there's some clean vocals too. The clean ones work sometimes and sometimes they don't, because sounding like drunk singing. Besides that, the vocals are rhythmically good, like not fitting into songs. Covers include, together with the lyrics, some fitting graphics, but those lesbian sex pictures embedded into cover and back cover pictures are beyond me...

Still familiar Abigor, I personally enjoy more of these space lyrics when compared to the satanic themes, but also the music is good, thanks to new touches. I both enjoy and dislike listening to 'Satanized...', because there are a lot of goodies, but also more lame things to be heard (especially bad vocals syllabication). However, after all, this is a portal to experience the infinite darkness, at least a touch of it.

Rating: 7- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
07/23/2002 20:38