Hailing from Norway and formed in 2020, Avmakt is the latest project from Kristian Valbo (Obliteration), and Christoffer Brathen (Flight, Gouge). Gaining the attention of none other than Darkthrone’s Fenriz, not to mention the respected Peaceville label off the back of a single demo, Avmakt quickly made their presence felt, with the wider world gaining a taste of their sinister sound via their inclusion on Peaceville’s black metal compilation album, Dark Side Of The Sacred Star. With the name Avmakt translating as “powerlessness”, there’s a bleakness to Satanic Inversion Of… that feels channelled from another realm, and it’s hardly surprising that anticipation has been building for this brutal, six-track outpouring of misanthropic rage.
The album opens with the grim, treble-heavy scree of Ordinance. Reminiscent of early Darkthrone, with elements of Emperor’s imperious disdain through their blackened DNA, it’s a powerful opening, albeit sturdily familiar and it sets the scene for what follows. It is with the absolutely torrential Poison Reveal that Avmakt effectively up the ante, the hyper-speed drums paired with a grimy riff that sounds like thrash accidentally set at 45rpm. A dizzying cacophony, riven with a sense of dank atmosphere that you hear all too rarely in these over-processed times, Poison Reveal sees the band make good on their promise, neatly balancing dark themes of isolation and emptiness with oppressive weight, and the results are devastating.
At the heart of this grim little missive from Norway’s frozen heart lies the ten-minute Sharpening Blades Of Cynicism. A monumental undertaking, while Avmakt don’t exactly temper the sense of tension that surrounds the other tracks, they allow a little more movement in tempo and the piece unfurls at its own pace. As such, when it finally reaches peak momentum, the listener is already being dragged along in its wake, hanging on for grim life as the band sheer off riff after riff. It provides the album with a darkly epic core, and it perfectly showcases Avmakt’s musical strengths.
Shorter and sharper, Towing Oblivion emerges from a rime of feedback to hack and slash at the listener with untrammelled fury. Even here, the band are unwilling to keep things too simple, and the track evolves into a dark groove that rides roughshod across the frozen landscape, occasionally pillaging as it goes. Providing a neat contrast, Charred has a blackened doom aspect, the BPM only just in the double figures, the guitars mired in a slough of despond – so much so that, when the tempo finally picks up, the listener is blindsided by the sudden eruption of hostility.
Concluding Satanic Inversion Of…, Doubt And The Void is another epic, once again demonstrating the dark prowess of Avmakt. It starts as a death march, the pounding drums moving in time to the footsteps of a thousand doomed souls. As the rasping vocals scorch the air, unexpectedly doom-influenced leads emerge, adding further depth to this dark lamentation, and it brings the album to a suitably enigmatic close.
A band that understands the importance of atmosphere above all else, Avmakt may comprise two impressive musicians, but for the most part their musicianship is invisible, apparent only once the initial shock has worn off. This is not the black metal of the early 90s, nor is it a modern interpretation, but rather it is a strangely timeless distillation of the themes and undercurrents that make black metal work, and it is no wonder that the band quickly gained the attention of both Fenriz and Peaceville. A masterclass in how to exist within a genre, both respecting its past and maintaining an eye to its future, this is quite simply a superlative debut. 9.5/10
