By all rights, I shouldn’t like Azaghal’s Omega as much as I do. Superficially, at least, there’s not a whole lot that separates it from the works of those musical descendants of Dissection I seem to have been reviewing of late, groups like the famed Watain and the less well-known Nordafrost. This album shares a number of characteristics with the latest output of those groups: aggressive pacing, blasphemous vocals, riffing that owes as much to heavy and death metal as it does to traditional black, the occasional blistering guitar solo, etc. Yet something helps elevate above the level of these works, and I’m not quite sure what it is.

I don’t think I’m biased here by my admitted fondness for guitarist and founding member Narqath’s other project, Wyrd. These groups have nothing in common, in case the previous paragraph didn’t tip you off; there is neither the primitive nor the doom styled folk black metal found in early and late Wyrd, respectively. Instead, the album provides a fairly technical, polished sounding work that does much more to evoke the scorching fires of hell than it does the cold, northern forests. True, the sixth track bears some resemblance to Wyrd’s later output, mainly thanks to the initially slower pace and what are probably Narqath’s clean vocals in the background during the beginning, but this is really where the similarity ends.

Well, actually, that’s a bit of a lie; the two groups notably have in common a similar level of songwriting ability. This, I think, is what really lifts the album above its peers; the songs, while similar enough to belong on the same album, manage to remain distinct, never really falling into the exact same structure. The songs often feature time signature and riff shifts, which hang together reasonably well, sometimes seeming a little arbitrary, but never as spastic as the worst of this style can be. Naturally, the riffs are quite good, and occasionally aided by some creative use of synth. While the songs are dominated by the guitar, every once in a while, some keyboards will slide in beneath it to lend an epic touch, most notably on the third track, “Quetzalcoatl”. Finally, the musicianship displayed here is pretty high, especially with the guitar work and the vocals, pitched at a midrange rasp that perfectly suits the underlying music.

Nothing specifically about Omega makes me drop my jaw in amazement. However, the album as a whole is very solid and just clicks with me in a way that most other albums in this vein tend not to. I have to admit that I’m generally not the hugest fan of the more brutal black metal, of which this most certainly is; I generally prefer the more atmospheric and melancholy side of the genre. That said, this album works, and it works very well. I’d recommend this very strongly if you like your black metal furious, yet polished; even if you don’t, it’s probably worth a look. After all, you might find yourself, almost inexplicably, enjoying it.