Album Review

Azazel- Ashes To Ashes

Azazel is a metalcore band from Winston Salem, North Carolina. This album originally came out on Tribunal Records in the year 2000 and was reissued in 2008. I first heard about Azazel because of their record label Tribunal Records. At the time Tribunal was a new label and had just put out the Sever The Fallen album and the Prayer For Cleansing album. I was crazy about these albums and I had to have every album that Tribunal was releasing. So of course I bought the Azazel album and it was amazing. The singer of Azazel has a very powerful voice. His voice is almost demonic sounding. We have great technical guitar work here and even guitar solos. I love The Exorcist sample and other horror movie samples. This album is metalcore but it is almost just an outright extreme metal album. The drumming feels like an all out attack on the senses. I am just a sucker for these hardcore breakdowns. This album has a suffocating feeling like it is going to try to strangle you and make you pass right out from the sheer brutality of it all. This is a monumentally brutal release and I can't get enough of it. This album has an overall feeling of death that makes it sinister and evil sounding. If you had a soundtrack to claustrophobia this would be it. The singer has these hoarse guttural vocals that just put this album over the top. He is just sick and insane sounding. I really love the hell out of this album by Azazel. This album is simply awesome. So please check it out and thanks for reading.  Kevin

---