Album of the day: Ancient VVisdom – A Godlike Inferno

Lovingly pinched from Metal Underground.com: Repetition is one of the foremost techniques for remembrance and rewiring (or brainwashing) one’s brain. Ancient VVisdom’s debut full length A Godlike Inferno reveals repetition that ensures their words remain fixed inside the mind of their listeners.

The chorus on ‘The Opposition’,  “Hail to thee, Lord Lucifer / I sing praises to thee / and I suffer no longer”, contains ritualistic repetition that, depending on your world view, will attack your brain like the touch of a ringwraith or lead to religious illumination.

A Godlike Inferno, the follow-up to Ancient VVisdom’s split with Charles Manson, contains eight odes to the man down south (not Ted Turner). The group could easily match their lyrics to black metal’s inferno machinations, but Ancient VVisdom (pronounced “wisdom”) has taken more of an organic approach, opting for acoustic and clean guitar tones. By stripping down their music, the group achieves an ambiance similar to the late occult mentality of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s spearheaded by Anton LaVey.

The soothing, camp-fire-like tones that comprise  A Godlike Inferno seem bizarre for a cast of musicians used to inciting hardcore-fueled circle pits. The Austin-based band features Nathan Opposition and Michael Jochum of Integrity and Justin “Ribs” Mason of Iron Age. Additionally, TA of the black  / death troupe Hod recently joined the band, although he doesn’t appear on said record.

While songs such as the Agalloch-analogous ‘Necessary Evil’ and the supple ‘Children of the Wasteland’ keep things low key, other tracks up the ante of heaviness. ‘Devil Brain’ may contain part-acoustic, part-electric blues riffs, but the heaviness is in line with Danzig tunes such as  ’777′  and ‘I’m the One’.

Continue reading: Ancient VVisdom – “A Godlike Inferno” CD Review – in Metal Reviews ( Metal Underground.com ).

Tags: A Godlike Inferno, Album of the day, Ancient VVisdom, Anton LaVey, Charles Manson, Integrity, Iron Age, Metal Underground, Michael Jochum, Nathan Opposition, Occult Rock, Shinebox Records

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2011 at 4:05 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.