The snare, their sovereignty, and the seat at the throne that ensures the sun rises every day in its enduring legacy the magick of the goddess Aset is legendry even today per reaching its unreal apex in the minds of the cult then and the occult now as the keeper of cosmic order itself and antipode to the willful change brought upon the world by Typhonian beasts. With the curious residue of the ancient Egyptian great ennead’s incestuous wiles slimed across its forehead the sisterly force against the agent of change which brings life and restoration to the auld flesh of Franco-Finnish (and beyond…) black metal entity Aset spurns on their fevered exploration of ancient rites and psychic torsion. ‘Astral Rape‘ aims to consume the psyche within its trial, to test the hunger of the mind with its mysterious yet volatile mustering of unreal forces in cyclic consideration ’til some breaking point is achieved within their moderne black metal dominion.

Aset formed in hidden chambers, beneath trap doors and behind black-painted windows with the horrifying secrecy of a mystery cult, dedicated to black metal without consideration for earthly borders. That is to say we don’t know shit about this band in the slightest beyond what the ear might divine and what the press release suggests is some membership also involved in the quite large legacies of Seth (France) and Oranssi Pazuzu. This turns out to be enough information for the laser-eared among us to figure the vocalist and perhaps the distinct range/recording sound of the drumming. Consider them chimeric, without a distinct face, masked for the sake of representing something akin to Sethian spirituality and the balance between solidarity and welcome waves of change which they’ve called “protean” in its collective, a suggested membership evolving per the entity.

Anyhow, the style Aset‘ve managed here on this debut is best described (by default) as occult black metal, but not exactly the style we saw more often nearby/beyond ‘The Satanist‘ back in the mid-2010’s as their sound is by majority void of death metal affect and lands somewhere nearby the French/Icelandic atmospheric style. It is a fairly familiar set of shapes and aggressive in attack style largely concerned with swaying and malevolent movements which reach their grandeur through straying-in-mind guitar lines and light use of dissonance to lend surreal and unpredictable voicing to each phrase. Precise, clean in presentation and layered much deeper than expected this debut retains a certain psychogenic/surreal effect throughout per its obsessive guitar rhythms and clobbering feel by way of notably adept drum work which rises and falls into the intensity of each moment.

Throat singing, pulsing synth and triangulated strikes of guitar gloom introduce the album with “A Light in Disguise” before percussive hits upon bent chords begin to regale the listener with the depth of the openers bombast. The intent to surround the listener with the insidious hum of the ancient world comes by way of quick-footed double bass drum hammering which lends a tribally bound boost to the mystère of the opening moments of the album, a feeling which “Abusive Metempsychosis” full advantage of right after on a piece which I suppose tangentially recalled the spirit of later Mayhem in some obscure sense per the monastic shouting and eerie groove introduced in the second half, there is a tautness to this particular composition which begins to build momentum behind this very strong first half of the album. This’ll be indicated even more as the next piece chimes in.

The gates creak, the clock ticks, the break in the sky forms and one of the more accessibly grasped and enthused pieces in the early moments of ‘Astral Rape‘, “A New Man for a New Age”, arrives feeling as if it were set out to be the moving sidewalk to the next level of their underworld. As the main riff morphs and spasms into the tunnel vision that’d come next this is where I feel the indoctrination is strongest for those who seek the rush and the electricity of the experience rather than the minutiae of each note. The best parts of this piece feel as if they’re driven out of control, though I’d appreciated the harmonized bits which come into view ~1:10 minutes in, as they give sinister shape to the piece and break apart the blur of their presentation which is stylized but all birthed into the same pool; If the group growled vocals of the prior piece hadn’t indicated multiple vocalists then “Lord of Illusions” should at the very least suggest an impressive range of expression from the main performer as this song, perhaps my favorite on the release, tunnels deep within its ritual shouting and roaring as its dramatic highs and brutal pacing act as the a thrilling peak at the middle of the album.

From my point of view this is where the album has showed its strongest, strangest glow of aggro-personae and from there they relax the tension of the album to a certain degree and introduce some varietal guitar textures, some bass guitar prominence (“Astral Dominancy”), and different semi-melodic ideas as ‘Astral Rape‘ continues to evolve in the final third of its narrative. It isn’t until we’ve reached the endpoint with “Serpent Concordat” that the whole of the experience achieves its profundity, wrapping up with a dramatic closer that is likewise representative of the range which Aset have shown on the way through. Even if we’d learned the full language of their production and the tone of the project is well stated within four or five pieces there was much more to say all the way up until the soaring peak of the experience and I suppose this speaks to the talents of those arranging the whole of the album into this concise yet engrossing experience which builds its substance within ~6 minute ringing black metal pieces. I’d felt it was refreshing that this wasn’t yet another throwback to the 90’s and instead felt like a modern yet occult-afflicted (and still menacing) presentation, familiar as certain guitar techniques were at times the theme of their work ended up well illustrated and enthralling when experienced in repeated session. A moderately high recommendation.

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