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Review: Corvus Corax - The Atavistic Triad
Corvus Corax
The Atavistic Triad

Label: Dark Symphonies
Year released: 2000
Duration: 42:20
Tracks: 5
Genre: Black Metal

Rating:
4/5


Review online: September 4, 2023
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
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Rated 4/5 (80%) (3 Votes)
Review

This takes me back. Around the turn of the century, Dark Symphonies was a very cool underground label mostly focused on Darkwave and Doom with some Black Metal sprinkled in there for good measure, and this was one of the releases they pushed pretty hard. Corvus Corax were an ambitious band from Seattle, and this remains their only release, as they apparently broke up not long after it was completed and then vanished into the ether. Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Johann Cleereman went on to do his solo project, The Red King, but then he died in 2016.

This is a similarly ambitious and eclectic-sounding recording to The Red King, though this stays more within the bounds of genuine metal—more, not entirely. A Black Metal sound forms the base, along with a lot of dark, almost Gothic Metal sounds and a lot of different instruments and moods. Type O Negative is definitely an influence here, along with a lot of ideas from the Doom end of the pond. It can be kind of disjointed, and the long songs do meander more than a bit, but there's just something compelling about it all anyway. It's refreshing to hear something in the genre that is genuinely trying to do something original, and not just following the sound of the moment. 2000 was kind of a turning point for Black Metal, with the second wave dying out and a lot of different bands going in different directions, and this remains iconoclastic and innovative, even if it's not a masterwork.

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