Code666, 2004
Genre: Black Metal
1. Interference From The Other Side Pendulum Pray
2. Where The World Becomes Flesh
3. Pendulum Prey Reciprocating Horror
4. Reopening Wounds Of The Transition Hospital
5. Heaving Salvation In The Paradise Of Rust
This is a limited edition Ep and only has 666 copies in print, which is standard procedure for the record label Code666 when issuing limited edition copies. After “The Ichneumon Method” I was partially looking forward to the next release. In retrospect “The Ichneumon Method” was a decent release. However, in my opinion it had some character flaws that I couldn't ignore and I wondered if they would put something out that was even more chaotic.
I have to say that this is probably one of the most interesting and frightening albums I've heard this year. This is an incredible improvement for The Axis of Perdition, in my opinion, from their last effort. Basically this album is much less chaotic than the previous, but it is probably twenty times darker and that much more foreboding. While the actual songs are quite chaotic, in that chaos I found some semblance of order. A more exacting and calculating figure bent on hatred to put it in more artistic terms.
As with the last album, The Axis of Perdition conceptually focus on the overall destruction of society and everything related to life. They view it as a filthy existence and want nothing to do with it. This album definitely focuses more on ambiance than metal in comparison to the last album, which is great in my opinion because this gives the whole listen a more intangible and inhuman feel. The album opens with a full song of ambiance and noise which sets the tone for the whole album. It is similar to what Abruptum is probably trying to do, but fail miserably at every single time they enter the studio. Regardless this Axis of Perdition album feels more like an actual story or journey into darkness than “The Ichneumon Method.” An interesting production note is that I found the production to be slightly better on this release. However, on the song “Where the World Becomes Flesh” the vocals appear to be too low in the mix. I think this is on purpose though, because it adds for an interesting background feel to the music. Later in the album the vocals get louder. “Heaving Salvation in the Paradise of Rust” is simply an incredible conceptual piece by this band. The previous track is just emergency vehicle sirens, so it sets the listener up for something horrible happening. The last track opens with a clean guitar passage and follows down a very gloomy path. It hits into a metal section once in the song with varying ambiance and samples as is The Axis of Perdition's prerogative in the past.
In summation I would say if anyone is looking for anything that is overwhelmingly dark and intense at the same time, this is the album to get. I somewhat wish this was not a limited edition album because I believe more people should hear this album. Overall, if I had to give this a quick description I would say that if Pinhead from Hellraiser listened to any album regularly, it would be this one.
Note: I found this out well after this release. This was originally to be a split release with Blut Aus Nord, but things didn't work out and each half was a released as it's own separate Ep. The Blut Aus Nord half is "Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity" and upon hearing that I realized this would have been an incredible split. Bringing everything here more into the realms of a full length feel. For after the short work The Axis of Perdition do here, I realize I wanted more of this. If I remember correctly, the Blut Aus Nord side was intended to be first and build into The Axis of Perdition half.
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