Aosoth’s Ashes of Angels starts out sounding exactly like hordes of other raw black metal albums do: blistering, fairly simplistic, punk-influenced riffing, muddy production values, snarling vocals, etc. After the opener ‘Songs Without Lungs’ was over I was ready to resign myself to this being a rather mediocre album, but fortunately songwriter BST turns up the creativity dial on the next song, the title track ‘Ashes of Angels,’ and the album only gets better from there.

A lot of Ashes of Angels sticks to fairly typical black metal riffing and aesthetics, but Aosoth throws enough interesting melodies and variation into their songs to elevate this album to an above-average black metal record. The next few tracks after the title track feature some very creepy, dissonant guitar work, but just when the songs begin to feel formulaic, Aosoth changes things up yet again, saving some of their best ideas for last.

I actually found the last few tracks to be my favorites on the album; ‘Cries Out of Heaven’, ‘Communion Through The Rain’ and ‘Banished’ are all great tracks. Throughout the album, Aosoth manages to combine a very raw, aggressive sound with good songwriting and variations in texture, while Antaeus’s MkM provides a particularly savage vocal assault. Ashes of Angels is a solid piece of black metal carnage, and is certainly better and more interesting than a lot of what bands playing this style are putting out.

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