I’ve been trying to review this album for weeks now. Things kept getting in my way, however, and so now I’m able to sit down and put thoughts to page about this album that stands before me. I’m talking about French/Japanese depressive black metal duo, Enterré Vivant, and their heart-wrenching third album Azukï, from enigmatic label Antiq.

I’ve never heard of these guys before. The press release spoke about how the album is centered around ten Buddhist sins and the toll of WW2 on the Japanese people. It’s an homage from vocalist Sakrifiss to his home for the last 25 years, and it hits hard.

Without getting buried in the weeds of history, I’m going to stick to the music, which is as brutal as it is heartbreaking and moving. Interspersed between the blasts and scythe-sharp guitar riffs are radio broadcasts (?) I don’t know what is being said, as they’re in Japanese but they serve to bolstered the emotional knob past eleven.

“Jaken” is the first of these and if these are authentic (which I have no reason to believe they’re not) they are fucking scary knowing what happened when the bombs fell and the silent death that followed from radiation. It’s followed by the unrelenting “Chûtô” and it’s here that I am blown away by this album. This track takes control of the heart strings and yanks them to and fro. The riffs are absolutely deadly, the tone is massive with a fat bottom end and the drums are sometimes battering rams and sometimes soft ripples in a frothing sea.

“Sesshô” has an Emperor feeling that I can’t shake. During the 7:00 minutes that it exists it explodes in the middle and just goes full on “Inno a Satanas” with some haunting, ghostly vocalizing and you’re not prepared to experience “Warugushi” when it spills out of the speakers and segues into “Jain” a beautiful bruiser, that reminds me of Happy Days in the beginning; the song allowing itself to be manipulated into the most gorgeous tapestry of suffering and death. At the five-minute mark, it takes another turn and over a tremolo-picked riff that is served over spoken parts complete with crying babies and their mothers… Could it be any more DSBM? I think not.

Let me mention the insane cover, it’s unsettling and more brutal than any hand-drawn horror.

“Dony’oku” is a striding giant, powerful and precise. A masterwork of this violent duo was created to memorialize the terrors of war. “Môgo” is just scary as hell, it sounds like a ritual of destruction. Fitting, for the subject matter of pain.

“Shin’i” is another mid-paced crusher sporting this lush orchestral level at the two-minute mark. This is a very In the Nightside Eclipse era Emperor meets Stormblast era Dimmu Borgir sounding track. Do you get the impression that I love this album? Because I do, just to be clear.

“Kigo” has a Woods of Infinity flavor over some killer Moonsorrow keys. Its merciless nature is on display, and the rabid vocals elevate it to a whole other level of extremity.

“Ryôshita” is perhaps the creepiest outro I have heard in a long while. It’s like the hope of the future in the post-war era delivered mournfully to the masses, and it tops off Akuzaï with heart-heavy aplomb.

I cannot recommend this album enough. It conveys the horrors of war in an honest and unique way. Get it now and be blown away.

[Visit the band's website]

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