Friday 5 June 2015

Angakok - Angakok (CD Review)


01.Perpaluktok Aitut
02.Sacrifice
03.Collapsing
04.Aksarpok
05.Samsara
06.Avioyok
07.Dead Birds
08.Trust My Scorn
09.Empty Cup
10.Sivudlit Nertorpok


Ben (Vocals/Guitar)
Baston (Guitar/Samples)
Run (Drums)



From Belgium, Angakok are a minimalistic, loud and chaotic trio merging doom, sludge and drone influences. A first track, "Porsinauleq", is issued on R.A.I.G.'s compilation "Dirgenera Compendium II". After opening shows in their hometown for bands such as Altar Of Plagues, Monarch or Sofy Major, they released a 3 tracks demo recorded by Jeremy Stoz (Mammouth Machine) at the Pole Image studio. As result of this ep. they gets on the road for a new series of shows, festivals and contests such as the Concourt-Circuit while working on some new compositions. The result of this work is Angakok, the band's first album, recorded at the Noise Factory Studio by Gerald Jans.


'Perpaluktok Aitut' is the weirdly titled first song, i say song its more of what sounds like a Native American speaking over some distortion guitar.

More traditional sludge/doom to listen to with 'Sacrifice' thoughtowards the end gets a bit more frantic.

Next we are 'Collapsing' with some slow and painful guitar chords, howevr as this progresses they throw in some speech samples from a news report (?) and the music gets a little heavier.

More weirdness with 'Aksarpok' and more speech samples over a riff this time, this is followed by 12 minutes of 'Samsara' more doom/sludge, until 5 minutes in and it gets very quiet with some simple guitar picking out a few notes, after briefly returning to the sludge and then it sort of mixes everything up towards the end.

'Avioyok' is abot one minute of sound effects, followed by 'Dead Birds' which is 90 seconds of sludge/avant-garde noise akin to the Melvins.

'Trust My Scorn'starts agin with that Native American speaking and then flows into another dark and painfull workout.

After 'Empty Cup' which is more of the same we end on 'Sivudlit Nertorpok' a very quiet atmospheric piece.

Rating 9/10
For Fans of: Melvins, Sunn o))), Earth, Blut Aus Nord

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