Digging Up Graves ~ Asarmoth, Princess of the Darkness

 

ASARMOTH is the new solo project from Gigi Casini the former Bass/Vocalist of the Italian Death Metal band MIND SNARE. Casini's new project merges the influences of early 80's extreme metal acts like Venom, Bathory and Celtic Frost with early death metal bands like Obituary, Deicide, Morbid Angel and Death Vader.

Princess of the Darkness is an interesting blend of old school metal and death metal with a toned down driving bass and drum line that runs thought the album tying all the tracks together like a brooding death march. Casini has done some interesting stuff on this album and incorporated some elements that you don't often hear in metal. Listening to this album for the first time I picked up a slight prog-metal influence on a few of the tracks with echo effects and what sounds like a simple yet classic keyboard synthesizer. Don't get me wrong, isn't a bad thing at all and I really like it when artists take influences from other genres and work them into their music. Sometimes it's nice to hear something other than growling and yelling over thrashing guitars and blast beats for ten plus tracks. 

One of my favorite tracks was Mesmerized and without a doubt there is an old school Black Sabbath flavor to this track fused with an interesting keyboard layer. The vocals are "clean" growls but again it fits with the overall theme of the track. For a true death metal offering the track Fight Till The Death offers the classic death metal speed and riffs you would expect from influences such as Obituary or Morbid Angel. 

Overall Princess of the Darkness is a nice slow burn with some interesting elements that you don't often hear in death metal. I enjoyed listening to this album and trying to pick out all the different influences that went into it. This is the kind of creativity that you really only find in the underground metal scene because very few mainstream artists are going to take this kind of chance. Check out Asarmoth on SoundCloud and support the underground. 

ASARMOTH · Princess of the Darkness