Side A, contains the movements “Relinquished”, “The Shadowcast” and “Yielding Servitude” all blending into 22 minutes of music, and as the album opener it actually takes a while to get going. But once it does it’s utterly stunning. If you melded traditional top notch, grimmer Scandinavian black metal (Horna, Watain, etc.), and the riffs and croaks of Inquisition but injected some organic experimentation (Fluerety comes to mind), keys and epic elegance of Spectral Lore, you have some idea of Ordinance‘s brilliantly twisted, regal sound.

As I mentioned, the opening movement, “Side A,” especially what appears to be the 12 minutes or so that comprise the title track, takes a while to warm up but when “The Shadowcast” gets going a few minutes in (about 14 minutes into the total time of side A), it delivers some amazing, layered melodies, a nice acoustic backdrop (a banjo maybe?) and some nice tempo and time changes.

It’s Side B, another twenty minute trio (“Ascending into the Unknown”, “Peregrination Unto the Inevitable”, “Cipher”), where the album really takes off. It gets to the tremolo salvo pretty quickly before a stern march, but 8 minutes in, the thing just explodes with a simply gorgeous riff and somber bass line that might be one of my favorite black metal riffs of the year, and it’s not a fleeting riff either, it’s revisited for a good chunk of the track’s middle 22 minutes, along with a nice almost country ho down, an acoustic bridge and a controlled final 3 minutes

Side C (“Sword of Division”, “Waning Light”, “For Satan my Soul”) starts with a cat mewing, but ends up being the best of the sides with some vicious, frosty blasting, a flamenco bit, an epic solo, and a rousing trot around 13 minutes in and a close out that cements the track and album perfectly with 5 or so minutes of chants and folky acoustics that comes across like an epic tribal jam session.

There is A LOT going on on Relinquished, maybe too much for some folks that want their black metal moire direct, but if you want Spectral Lore with a bit more Finnish gnarl, then Ordinance has delivered that sound as well as a truly special album that could well be a landmark debut album in future years. Look for a CD release earlier in 2015, where this will more than likely be atop my year end list 2 years in a row.

Being my first exposure to Saturnian Mist, I had no expectations, but I was greeted with a genre bending form of black metal that sounds more like something from Germany rather than Finland. It’s got an earthy, loose production, a multi faceted, demented vocalist, and a virile and vile sense of dynamics that mixes raging black metal, dank occult ambiance and themes and a sliver of death metal heft. It all comes together to form an admittedly not immediate album, but an excellent one that takes several listens to unfurl its occult malevolence.

Admittedly, the album takes a bit to get going, but once it clicks (around “The Watcher’s Feast” for me), and does burrow into your mind, it warrants going back and revisiting the earlier tracks that initially seemed a bit of a mess. For example opener “The Regicide” initially comes across as a down tuned black metal number with gravelly blasts and grooves, and second track “Bythos in Quintessence”  with its shouted opening and staggering pace, seems just out of place. However, active repeated listens to each track  reveal much more; some previously unheard whisper or chants (“Consecration of the Temple”) , a shift in guitar tone,  a vitriolic vocal rant (“Sacrifice of Faces Unbroken”), a subtle layered melody line,or a feverish more ambient ambient track with female vocals (“Aura Mystica”).

However, Saturnian Mist isn’t just some artsy, trendy black metal band band, as they can bare their teeth at will as heard on the blistering “Temp-Des-Cranes” mid section of “Sacrifice of Faces Unbroken” or title track. And while these bursts are certainly not the norm on Gnostikoi Ha-Shaitan , they are rendered as convincingly and a menacingly as the rest of albums heaving,occult and atonal lurches, which to be honest are what make this album one of 2011s undiscovered gems that any discerning black metal fan should go back and check out.

I don’t have a whole lot of reference points for this act, but it’s safe to say they definitely sound German. Their off kilter brand of black metal is full of weird time changes, strange interludes and chock full of atypical black metal structures and elements. It’s not off the charts bizarre or completely over the top, as there is a ritualistic, steady gait and cohesion to the album, akin to Secrets of the Moon or the new  Klabautamann. But with dashes of vocal eclectics and unpredictable twists and turns, it makes for a challenging, if at times, slightly disjointed album.

Opener “The Trembling Eye” sets the tone with a creepy, minimalist percussive number with ritualistic spoken words before “Coitus Behind Moral Walls” lurches into view with the pace and gait of some multi-limbed, crawling, twisted beast. It’s unsettling but not a total mind rape like say Gnaw Their Tongues, and that’s the M.O of the entire release really. The sermon continues with “Shining Toxic and “The Cloven Psalmody”” more tracks with no discernible pace or structure other than a a few bars of gravelly riffs or beats before another labyrinthine shift. Those looking for frosty tremolo picks or safe atmospherics should definitely look elsewhere. But right when you think the album is going off the deep end completely , “Among Them” delivers a song that has almost the same beat for the whole track, at least percussion wise, and “Impulse From The Sphere Of Broken Larynx” delivers an almost traditional black metal pace albeit with A’s demented vocals. However, the dementia returns for the leering “With Words Like Ecstasy” and more icky, spoken word sermons by way of ‘”Tongues”.

The aptly titled “Meandering Through the Tunnel of Trance” closes out Chapter I with a longer, and still winding, slithery number with a blasting black metal climax. But the whole time, as with the whole album, I can’t help feel that Ave Maria haven’t quite become fully unhinged yet and reached their full potential.There’s a sense of admittedly unbalanced  restraint and holding back, like a straight jacketed metal patient waiting to break free. Its not as fully realized as label mates Saturnian Mist and their Gnostikoi Ha-Shaitan, debut so I wonder if Chapter I was just a glimpse into the the mind of Ave Maria, and I hope that Chapter II unleashes the potential Shining- like forces undulating beneath the surface.