Artist: Azazel
Country: Finland
Label: Primitive Reaction
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
33 years and still going, Azazel returns with their latest full-length ‘Ave Dominus Luciferi’. Released on, how could it be any differently, the 6th day of the 6th month at the 6th PM, it brings pretty much everything you would expect from the Finns.
Although the band may forever be associated with drunken antics, they can delve into a solid back catalogue full of catchy, groovy and old school Black Metal. The previous record ‘Aegrum Satanas Tecum’ was a decent record, that maybe didn’t have hits like ‘Rotting Nazarene’ or the overall strong level of the band’s second album ‘Witches Deny Holy Trinity’, but it was entertaining and recognizable through and through. And the same applies to the latest creation ‘Ave Dominus Luciferi’. On it you can find the same crude Black Metal that just sticks to the basics of the 80’s and 90’s. It shakes and rattles, transitions aren’t necessarily smooth, there’s maybe a few riffs too many in some songs and at times vocalist and founding member Lord Satanachia seems to be working on a different song, but it’s full on charming and 100% honest.
Compared to the previous record, ‘Ave Dominus Luciferi’ is a little bit less raw in production, and while that doesn’t mean the approach has changed a lot, it does reveal elements of the band’s music that are brought more to the forefront. The clearest manifestation of the somewhat smoother production is the emphasis on melancholy within the riffs, something that in hindsight could also be heard on ‘Aegrum Satanas Tecum’. Fitting with this mood at times the music creeps in a Doomy direction. But as a whole, you get what you expect from Azazel. A track like ‘Hail Goat of Mendez’ is slower, more brooding with groove. Songs like ‘Ceremony of the Nine Evil Angels’ and ‘Rise Mighty Army of Darkness (Coda: Malum)’ are more choppy, riff-driven and pacey, while ‘Serpentine Shadows: Ode to the Dark Lord’ is a bit of both. And it certainly doesn’t get more typical Azazel than a song titled ‘Virgin’s Cunt Bleeding for Baalberith’.
And thus, the conclusion for ‘Ave Dominus Luciferi’ is rather the same as for ‘Aegrum Satanas Tecum’. Not their best album, nothing earthshaking, but fun, unpretentious and unpolished Black Metal with plenty of headbanging bits. Best enjoyed on the tipsy side of the spectrum, this is just 100, or rather 666 percent Azazel. Nothing more, nothing less.
