Reviews: SAT349

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Back in the first month of 2011, Aleksey Korolyov formed the dark ambient project Satanath. The next year, he launched an extreme metal label of the same name. Decibel has premiered many songs and albums by bands on his label in the decade since. The project’s sophomore album Metallized Arena was originally released as a digital-only oddity. Ten years later, Satanath Records and More Hate Productions honored the album’s anniversary with a physical release on April 27th, 2022. They added seven bonus tracks, and a killer new album cover from Sdenzil Budon. Roman Sapozhnikov from Black Dwell Records remastered the tracks in Ukraine.

Metallized Arena is an album of clashing textures. The metal implied in the album title feels abstract and fresh. Heavy bass looming behind electronic beats. Churns of dark industrial noise. Then there’s the ambient creep of shivering synths (“Third Eye’s Revenge” and throughout). In Korolyov’s band Abigorum he employs heavy distortion and elements of blackened doom. But on this album the guitars usually whispering in the distance and surrender to mechanical rhythms. The project focuses on mood and atmosphere, which makes album opener “Lethal Exekution” a perfect introduction. Consider it a post-metal deconstruction, with clanging bass and lumbering rhythms. The song marches to the track’s final notes while playing with the expectations of drone.

Satanath dedicated this reissue to the memory of Juraj Haríň (label boss of Immortal Souls Productions and Slovak Metal Army) and Den Noiser (leader of the ambient projects Omutt and Mare Desiderii).

Press play to open your mind and bury your flesh with Satanath.

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2022/05/04/track-premiere-satanath-lethal-exekution/