Maris Anguis – Infernal Reign (Black Ambient Soul Purge)

 

There’s good ambient, and there’s bad ambient, regardless of subgenre. There is no middle. The reason is simple. The artist is either skilled at making music, or merely holds keys on a keyboard. I’ve said this a bagillkillion times. Here we have something even beyond the usual skill, though, something of darkly mythic potential. And this is evident from the first notes and spectral whispers that emerge. A project of famed Japanese composer Ryo Utasato, Maris Anguis combines the best of the infernal and ritualistic, sculpted into a form more its own than anything I’ve heard in awhile. Let the religious purge begin with Infernal Reign.

   

It’s hard to find any words spoken or written about this one that isn’t from the label or artist. Perhaps they’re speechless, or, most likely, they just don’t know what in the hell to say. It sounds pompous, perhaps overwrought, perhaps artificial, but Infernal Reign is the kind of selection that can leave a listener speechless, even with experience with the better side of ambient and all of its genre relatives. Maris Anguis combines so many elements in here, yet without ever becoming burdensome, that it’s difficult to tell when one track begins and another ends. It’s entirely done out of reverence for all things somber. Several listens in and you’ll still find something interesting. So let me stop now and let you start.

 

Maris Anguis Official Facebook

Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls

Maris Anguis – Infernal Reign
Slithering Black Records
Cover Art: Omen North
4.6 / 5