Review by Rexorcist for Archgoat - The Light-Devouring Darkness (2009)

OK, so in my bestial black metal ventures, a single album was all it took to prove that Archgoat is a bit better than the iconic Blasphemy.  In my earlier review for Blasphemy's debut album, I said that they have invented a standard but it would be easy for many bands to beat them at it.  It's pretty obvious that Archgoat was not only one of the bands that were struck with Blasphemy, but would surpass them.  Having said that, surpassing the two Blasphemy albums is not a difficult task to me, and their debut was a decent experience.  How would their next one turn out?

After the dark ambient into and the first song, I thought to myself it would just be a rehash, but I would soon be proved wrong.  The next two songs showed a careful death doom slow pace which was simplistic but fairly hypnotic.  If not for their standard sound, I would've been awestruck with it, but remained only impressed with the decision.  But then track 5, Sodomator of the Doomed Venus (I typed that shit out and I need to wash my hands) steals the show with a short, black punkish display of spasmatic percussion and raw noise.  The noise is further touched up on in the once again simple but purely black title track.  So by this point, I'm quite a bit more impressed with their attempts at further exploring extreme metal itself on this record.  I mean, I still have an obligation to call this album out for low-grade songwriting, but they're doing much more with this album while maintaining the strengths of their first.  The group also makes room for more melody during the slower and doomier moments, but are improving their melodic prowess a little bit in the faster moments, too.  Not much, but still.

So while Archgoat clearly still have some training to do in the songwriting department, they've been able to touch up the concept of innovation a little more.  Having said that, they don't often overcome the monotony of the first album, but at least they're trying.  Easy improvement and a nice direction forward.