Since the coming of LLN (Les L?gions Noires) in France during the 90’s, many things were done there in terms of Extreme Metal genres. Some of them are really great, showing a good work that comes to improve things, and some are so nasty or without creativeness that we keep thinking if that band deserved to record an album. But with ATAVISMA and their first album, “The Chthonic Rituals”, we must study their music deeply to give an opinion. Focusing their efforts on a form of bitter and aggressive Doom Death Metal, they show some musical talent, but they are too near of what was already done in endless forms. The genre is eroded, and the band is not creating something new. Of course, I know that no one needs to be an outstanding name as PARADISE LOST, MY DYING BRIDE, and ANATHEMA in their earlier works when guttural grunts were heard along slow guitar riffs, but you must be yourself. On the sound quality, something truly crude was done. Ok, not raw in a way that can make their music transform into a slow and confusing sound mass, because we can understand what they are playing, and that’s a good point. But their choice for instrumental tunes seems to be done to emulate the earlier Death Metal works from the 90’s. Once more: the secret of that form of music doesn’t reside on the sound quality, but in music itself, so to play such harsh tunes is a loss of time. There’s talent on the band, and it’s just their first album. But they must do something different, better than what is presented on “The Chthonic Rituals”. There are some good parts on songs as “Extraneous Abysmal Knowledge” (when they are not as slow as a funeral), “Sacrifice unto Babalon” (some riffs are really very good), the depressive melodies that shapes “Monoliths” and on the slow parts of “Amid the Ruins”. But one tip that can be useful to the vocalist: try to sing in such extreme low tunes as you do, because it makes your vocals not compatible with the band’s music. They have talent, but the band needs a good producer to set things on their due places.
