Ammit from Chile formed back in 1991 with the mission to create the most obscure black metal ever. 'Extreme Speed Satan' is Ammit's third full length album. But is it obscure or simply crap?!

'Burning in Darkness' is obscure enough introduction, sounding like it was created with random sounds from various instruments and some vocals. The title track explodes into doomish, low-end black metal inferno, which is thoroughly ugly. And this is how the album continues. Discordant, muffled, and definitely insane and fucking ugly. The framework of Ammit's music lie in the old school black metal of the 1980s, influenced by the pioneering hellraising hordes. The name of 'Abominations' characterizes the whole album perfectly, and while the song has more rocking touch, it also carries every aspect mentioned earlier. The whole album is hellishly out of tune, sounding like coming from a stretched cassette, and it feels like a lot of it was inspired while the recording (just check out those solos!). And it's not the only one of the songs with this "lottery" feel... Generally, this is very raw-sounding but still not chaotic, filled with inexact playing. Atmospheric ambient intros (3 in all) are the most obscure parts of the album. Vocals are harsh throat voice (sometimes a bit like Mille Petrozza of Kreator), not growling nor shrieking. And no, this isn't extremely fast musically, but mainly mid-paced.

During repeated listenings to this, I found no interest for this kind of inconclusively created black metal soup. Obscure? Only partly, as I don't think discordance and being out of tune is particularly obscure. It's how Ammit want to do it and that's perfectly fine by me. There's always space for new noise. Try it if you want some extreme old school style black metal. By the way, there's four older songs as bonuses, 2 from both 'Steel Inferno' (1998) and 'Mass Suicide' (2000) albums. 'Mass Suicide' ones sound way more ballsy than anything on 'Extreme Speed Satan'... I expected this to be more ballsy, but no.

Rating: 3½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/24/2007 16:23