Published: October 17, 2017

Today I want to tell you about an upcoming split album by Ah Ciliz and Chiral called “Origins”, which was granted to me for free by band members of Ah Ciliz for reviewing. This album is to be released on November 6 via Hypnotic Dirge Records, an independent non-profit Canadian music label. You probably already know about this label by their amazing releases of Mavradoxa and Kval I reviewed earlier. This release is also available via Throats Productions, an underground black metal label from Mexico which you may know by my Pure Wrath review.

“Origins” is a 5-song (3 from Ah Ciliz and 2 from Chiral) masterpiece heavily influenced by such bands as Lustre, Agalloch, Mavradoxa, Windbruch and others. Bands are organically complementing each other and diversifying the sound of “Origins”. While Ah Ciliz is somewhat lucid and celestial, Chiral is more depressive, angry and down-to-earth band. I’ve noticed a slight influence of early Dimmu Borgir works on Ah Ciliz sound. You may say that Dimmu Borgir isn’t that TRVE and CVLT, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that their “For All Tid” and un-remastered “Stormblåst” were really good atmospheric/symphonic albums.

Ah Ciliz guitars came really close to the iconic sound of these early releases, which you can clearly hear in the opening song “Cascadia”, for example.

I consider it as a strong advantage of this release. In contrast to this, Chiral guitars are harsher and more raw black metal oriented.

As both bands are positioning themselves as an atmospheric black metal, you can expect acoustic parts, keyboards and other stuff in their songs. It’s very interesting how Ah Ciliz is using these elements: they are not an addition to the main theme, but the important part of a whole song. Contrary to Ah Ciliz, Chiral is more oriented on a guitar and vocal parts of the song while keyboards are somehow backgrounded.

Solos. In addition to the already listed, I want to note amazing guitar solos which are uncommon for black metal. It makes the sound even more diverse.

Quality. Songs are well recorded and mixed. Drums are angry and powerful, vocals are well-audible and guitars simply do their job without drawing attention from other parts of songs.

I wasn’t able to find any serious disadvantages of this release. “Origins” is a solid album with everything you probably expect from the atmospheric black metal release. A little bit repetitive, but it’s not a problem of this album, but a problem of the whole genre. it’s hard to get rid of a thought that you’ve already heard this somewhere before.

I would highly recommend you “Origins” as a good and thoughtful release of this autumn. Everyone will be able to find something notable: cosmic atmosphere, angry guitars, tearing vocals. You can pre-order “Origins” here.