RBOTD #205: Azathoth
Symphonic sexy times
https://www.metal-archives.com/band/view/id/88241
Country: United States
Location: Fresno, California
Genre: symphonic black/death metal
Formed in: 2005
Status: unknown
By the Numbers
Azathoth is the:
79th band formed in the 2000s
45th band from the United States
14th band with an unknown status
Its genre tags have been seen:
Symphonic: Four times
Black: 57 times
Death: 58 times
Member Connections
Many. Narrowing this down to:
Ruins of Eden, a death metal band from Fresno, California
Writhen, a melodeath/thrash band from Clovis, California
Amenthes, a death metal band from Fresno, California
Goreshack, a death/thrash band from Fresno, California
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/205.
Sketch Check
Pass.
RateYourMusic Scores
Azathoth's 2007 EP Azathoth averaged a 3.29 score on 24 ratings.
If that was an LP, it would place Azathoth in the 55th percentile, but it's not an LP, so who cares.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Azathoth did not achieve the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
Symphonic sexy times! "Drink of mine like wine sipped from a brimming chalice/ Like semen dripped from a demon's phallus." And just like that, I'm banned on Bumble again. Anyway, that's not a medieval sext sewn onto a tapestry that would've gotten a squire drawn and quartered, it's a line from "In Darkest Dreams," the first actual song on Azathoth's 2007 self-titled EP. It's some Cradle of Filth filthiness, detailing two vampiric lovers eating all of each other. I'm not sure I'd call the lyrics great. While they wouldn’t win a Bad Sex in Fiction Award, but you'd think for a couple minutes about submitting them. That said, they're not as clumsy as I'd expect from a band that otherwise sounds like Harlequin Presents Bleeding Through.
Yeah, Azathoth is doing that early Abigail Williams Euro-imitation, that metalcore-derived blackened death dressed in a frilly symphonic hoop skirt stuff. Do I hate it? Of course I do. But there are some OK moments. It's occasionally heavier than expected, tossing in those "gorilla choking on a bag of gym socks" lows that ruin Akercocke. There's also a dexterous riffiness that reminds me of when Vehemence tried to reinvent melodeath.1 Finally, Kyle Makki's keyboards engage in, like, smarty-pants counterpoint, and I wouldn't mind hearing them support anything but this.
Obviously I'm just a hater. This isn't it for me. Even the brief sections of "Alhazred" that sound like Carcass rub me the wrong way. It's funny because Azathoth isn't that far removed from something like Anorexia Nervosa, one of the better bands in this style, non-Emperor division. Like, if those bands toured together in 2007, I don't think everyone would go to the bathroom during Azathoth's set. But there's something about the American bands from this period that just doesn't land for me. They sound weird! Fake, like someone with a thick Midwest accent calling you a bloody wanker or a born and bred Floridian doing a Flowdan song for karaoke. Pretty unconvincing, veering into offensiveness. It's stolen valor for people with Mortiis masks or Dani Filth claws. I'm not sure rhyming "brimming chalice" with "demon's phallus" rescues Azathoth from that fate. That said, I'll remember it forever, so that's something. Take the wins where you can get them.
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I revisited God Was Created the other day and, holy heck, I don't think I ever realized how bad the drumming is on that album. Wretched.