When news came 10 years ago that Akercocke would be no more, the underground metal scene mourned and ever since has continued to mourn the loss of the one and only mighty, satanic, wacky, progressive blackened death metal gentlemen, Akercocke. 10 years later and the renaissance began when word spread that Akercocke would return with a new album, the band’s sixth album, Renaissance In Extremis.
This isn’t extreme like the band’s previous records. When I say there’s no more riffs and shit flying all over each other, you’ll know what I mean. In production the band haven’t turned everything up to 10 either. This is a more streamlined, refined, contained and comparatively easy listening outing.
But it’s all very Akercocke, up to a point, and at the point where order and consideration are favoured over brutal chaos, and where breathing space and air are favoured over filling every second with sound, and where almost predictable progressions are favoured over random changes in direction like a crazed driver on acid fleeing an imaginary demon through a city – is where it all stops being Akercocke – they physically sound the same, but they don’t speak the same.
4/5
Peaceville Records
Reviewed by Paul S Taylor
