The Berlin-based band AKRIVAL bears witness of Black Metal art with its second album Vitriolic. In doing so, they considerably set themselves apart from German scene precursors such as Endstille where virtuosity and complexity is concerned. Listening to the highly technical, extremely powerfully produced and frightening somberly interpreted sound, it reminds me of the aggressive moment of their fellow countrymen Secrets Of The Moon, but AKRIVAL almost persistently pass on breathers in the form of clean parts or alike.
The opener Vitriolic Circles starts with unsettling, filtered voices before all hell breaks loose. In spite of the musicians’ technical skills, they don’t overstrain the listener. Because despite the felt 120 riffs/song the guys get to the point in each of the nine songs, even though you need several attempts with the one or the other song, before the sinister mixture unfolds. This happens e.g. in Your Last Breath, which pleasantly reminds of old Atrocity: a great tapping-intro, a clearly mixed fretless bass sound, which makes AKRIVAL’s sound something special, and a likewise accumulation of logically coherent killer riffs such as in Atrocity’s Godless Years or Unspoken Names (both off the Todessehnsucht album). A grand piece of art! One can tell the band exists 15 years – experienced, but not too routinely; fresh, but not trendy; true to the base, but not pigheadedly ignorant; progressive, but not cumbersome!
If the band added the one or another shift in dynamics to the rousing tempo changes in songs like Moor Of Mercilessness and if the singer Scarog allowed a bit more color to this high-class vocals, Vitriolic would sound more coherent to me and would finally be more valuable for the German Metal scene.