The Chasm have been cracking skulls since 1994 with their riff-intensive, wildly creative death metal. Over the years they evolved from ass-scratching caveman death to technical insanity engineers, but skulls were always smashed just the same. Though I’ve been a fan forever, somehow I missed that The Chasm’s bassist/guitarist/vocalist Daniel Corchado had an epic/trve metal side project called Acerus and had been releasing albums since 2014. For this, I feel great shame and now I must make amends. The Caliginous Serenade is their fourth release and this one will be properly exposed to the AMG masses! And what should one expect on an Acerus outing? Basically, it’s The Chasm’s blueprint directly applied to 80s trve metal like Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Virgin Steele, and Omen, with wild guitar work out front leading the charge. It’s retro as Hell, trve as fook, and will have you joining a rampaging horde before the first song ends. Before we go on, let me ask you this: How’s your sword arm hanging?
As soon as opener “Dying Consciousness of an Old God” kicks into life you will feel stronger and capable of great war wiolence. The galloping guitar lines attack lustily with a big clanging bass following behind as a rear guard. Esteban Julian Pena’s vocals are passionate and sit somewhere between Mark “the Shark” Shelton (Manilla Road) and Tony Taylor of (Twisted Tower Dire), with side quests into Brian Ross (Satan) style sneer-crooning. It works and it will inspire you to heroic deeds. It’s the guitar work by Ed Escamilla and Daniel Corchado that takes center stage, however, and boy do these guys bring the wizard thunder! It’s such a feel-good opener loaded with olden metal tropes, but it kicks plenty of modern day ass. The fun continues on rollicking cuts like the excellent “The Perception” where riffs overrun large swaths of the free world and establish a 1,000-year Empire of Mano-metal. “Failing Visions” fuses the classic trve metal sound with Slough Feg-isms and knocks the weird hybrid out of the park because RIFFS! My personal favorite is “The Serpent is King” which comes at you with ravenous riffcraft with just a shade of blackened menace and thrashy recklessness.
The entire first half of the album is a pornocopia smorgasbord of throwback sword and loincloth metal that’s so freaking trve it may cause hysterical sword blindness. Unfortunately, the second half can’t keep up the high energy, high-quality onslaught, and a few songs feel like lesser versions of the righteous starter set. “Toward the Enigma of No Return,” while good, feels less stunning. “Prevail” is fine but also overstays its welcome, and “The Fourth Pentacle” is quite entertaining with a HUGE Virgin Steele vibe, but the falsetto vocals don’t really work and once again, things go on too long. The album wraps with the 10-minute title track, and while it’s good with very good moments dotted throughout, including more Virgin Steele worship, it too is oversized. The combination of these family-sized tracks makes the album’s 53-minute runtime feel quite heavyset by the end of the campaign.
Excess issues aside, this whole thing is a guitar fiend’s wet dream and there’s simply no way to listen to it without cramping your air guitar fingers. The riffs are stacked on other riffs and shored up with still more riffs. It’s a mammoth riff edifice where other riffs are brought to be sacrificed to the Riff Godz. Ed Escamilla and Daniel Corchado borrow from every notable trve metal act on their way to becoming immortal guitar gods themselves through the unnaturally large volume of ass-kicking leads they cover everything with. Even if you don’t like the classic 80s metal style you won’t be able to resist the swirling, churning guitar insanity. Esteban Julian Pena does a fine job with his vocals, channeling many legendary vocalists. His forays into falsettos aren’t great, but they’re thankfully rare. Corchado’s bass is audible and pops away to imbue some Cirith Ungol atmosphere and round out the uber-macho sound.
I’ve had way too much fun with The Caliginous Serenade and am currently racing through Acerus’ back catalog. If the album was a bit shorter and the editing a tad tighter, the Score Safety Counter would feel their merciless wrath. Even with the extra dad padding, this is too much fun to quit. If you want to experience trve glory, you need to get measured for a Caliginous suit right the fuck now. Tell em’ Steel sent ya. See you on the battlefield, chumbo.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 293 kbps mp3
Label: Lux Inframundis
Website: facebook.com/thechasm.acerus
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024
