The term “Avant-garde” applied in metal music has always left me confused and unsatisfied, for some reason I always expected orchestras and symphonic overtones in the music for me to recognize or at least try to identified an Avant-garde band; well within my ignorance I found a band that help me define what this “label” could mean and when it could be used, and is Antichrist the record that guide me to enlightenment!

Akercocke has never been a “regular” band, as a matter of fact they have always challenge the normal understanding of just how elaborate black/death metal can be played, and how it can be mixed with other genres and sounds

Antichrist is a rollercoaster of sounds, effects, layers, feelings, at times it can be overwhelming to a more than simplistic ear (I’m one of those!) but it never stops from been inventive and interesting; always working with and unconventional song structure the album travels through so many sounds that it is almost impossible to get the whole idea just by listening to it once, it requires more than 5 spins before you understand that their idea goes outside the normal boundaries of metal.

In order to get a glimpse of the album just by listening to one song (and that by itself is not enough believe me!) I can point to The Dark Inside a song that sounds like an electro/goth hybrid that has a “cute” sound to it until the drums speed things up and a couple of layers of fierce guitars introduce and almost brutal death growl impossible to understand, and that ability to morph a song from a “light” version into a more dark and brutal vision is what Antichrist does best, never repeating a formula but experimenting with everything at every point, and making it always sound good.

Antichrist goes beyond everything you have heard, or at least makes it incredible difficult for you to compare it to another band, and that’s were the “Avant-garde” label comes into play, you have to listen and analyze this band by itself instead of lumping them with a genre of movement.