AVICHI

AVICHI is the creation of multi-instrumentalist Andrew Markuszewski, a solo black metal project that strikes a balance between deceptive compositional simplicity and conceptual richness. Catharsis Absolute is the third project of Markuszewski's under this name, and has some significant expectations to live up to, as it follows 2011's stunning concept record The Devil's Fractal. Fans of AVICHI's previous work will not be disappointed; there's a thick, undulating muscularity to the riff structures that evokes Lord Mantis (of which Markuszewski is also a part), and the emotional tone of the record is at once commanding and mournful. There's a precision, a clarity to the composition and execution that was not fully realized with The Devil's Fractal, or was buried in the baroque decadence of that record's engagement with evil. Catharsis Absolute is more sparse, more spare than its predecessor, which makes the occasional moments of embellishment even more effective. The touches of clean singing amid the rank, buzzing riffs and hissing vocals add moments of delicacy to the frozen and twisted landscape, and the piano intro and outro are the aural equivalent of a sumptuous velvet carpet leading up to a necromancer's frozen castle.