Jeez, I'd almost forgotten that Atrocity main man Alex Krull has offered the world more than semi-sleazy goth metal and 80s cover tunes. With the new release, 'Okkult', Atrocity certainly have put a lot more on offer.
From the very outset, Pandæmonium strongly indicates that no prisoners will be taken. After a bombastic, effect-filled orchestral intro, this tune becomes a death/black metal piece in the vein of Unleashed and with strong hints of Dimmu Borgir, raw and brutal, yet multi-layer and multi-facetted. The comparison to the Swedish Viking metallers could be made to quite a few of the tracks of 'Okkult', and this isn't a bad thing. Comparisons to Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir could also be made. It wouldn't have been fun if the German veterans had merely copied Unleashed, COF and Dimmu, of course, and fear not; this is far from the case. They come into their own with a well-wrought and diverse album which holds many influences, ranging from 70s hardrock-inspired riffs (Haunted By Demons) to goth black metal.
Atrocity has successfully used award winning Canadian Sound Designer Katie Halliday to enhance the dark atmosphere of the album. Halliday worked on
on three of the Saw films as well as The Devil's Carnival and Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. I don't know what she did exactly, but the album does have a dark and brooding atmosphere throughout with joyfully creepy sound bites as well as perfectly integrated orchestral parts. And the good thing is that all of this never manages to take away the focus from the guitars which essentially carry the album.
Being Atrocity and Krull, I supposed there'd be something wrong if there wasn't a pumped up alternative club hit hidden in there. Satans Braut is just that. It has a big dose of Rammstein in it, of course, and it's probably going to go down a storm, even if it's actually the least interesting track of the album and the one that falls completely outside the otherwise brilliant framework which is 'Okkult'.
