Pervertum

Production: Clear with flat bass but reasonable representation of most other levels.

Review: Reasonably advanced second-tier black metal, Pervertum play the faster styles of Northern metal augmented with some technique and older metal stylings in a fury of repetitive music which provides a stage for the self-created drama of their conceptual content. A screeching voice howls monotonous declarations insistently behind a wall of flowing chords which generally follow patterns cut from the scale in power chords that repeat themselves in cyclic, nearly ambient loops of vague intimations of melody.

There may be an Emperor riff and arrangements from most major styles of black and death metal in the works of this band, but the creativity here is at the meta-level of second tier music, which reassembles new interpretations from the existing knowledge and explores paradox with some modification. Rhythms are well balanced internally and the band flows through bizarre rhythmic changes well, with the percussionist balancing multiple hits across several interconnected rhythms. Through the blasting riffs come moments where dissonant chords and strange riffs appear, pulled from ingredients a new conception.

Copyright © 1995 Lethal

Although none of the elements stand to any particular peak the moments of clarity are well assembled and the improvisations by which Pervertum personalize the genre are intriguing and invoke a concealed musicality which these guys would do well to develop. Some lead guitar played stable at various speeds shows some promise, with obscure atonal patterns twisting through the chords of a running riff, or an intricate bridge unified by melodic guitar patterning as the riff is transposed, reiterated, moved again.

Simple though the elements are Pervertum manage a credible amount of variation and display some interestingly powerful nascent chops in doing so. The ludicrous yapping vocals discredit the music by finding deliberately simplistic and irritating rhythms at which to puke out monosyllablic angst, running idiot rhythms over moments of rare clarity in the music.

The structure of this stuff remains a fusion of death metal and dark gothic rock, which adds a layer of cheeseball predictability to certain aspects of the songwriting but gives it a space it could claim were it more liberated to speak a distinctive voice; instead here are parts, with no collective harmony or even disharmony to suggest an ordering other than patchwork metal.