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The music of Khthoniik Cerviiks looms large amidst a rich and storied history of underground German bands who make uncompromising extreme metal. Æequiizoiikum, their sophomore full length released through the venerable Iron Bonehead Productions, is the fullest realization of this band's unique sound to date. Khthoniik Cerviiks is a band whose name, music and very essence is likely to cause anything but indifference. The one word that newcomers and long time fanatical supporters can likely agree upon to describe their sound is: unorthodox.
Listening to Æequiizoiikum, it's clear how well-defined the band's style has developed beyond any easy comparisons. There is a loose-limbed feeling to this set of music that separates it from cleaner overworked releases. The heat that this live sounding performance brings is palpable and inspiring with a tremendous sense of urgency. Æequiizoiikum conjures up old school blackened death metal in all its daring full frontal attack, dripping with atmosphere and menace. Among the record's most striking achievements is the fact that the band manages to create such heaviness that is both instantly recognizable and still profoundly strange.
More than ever in their seven year history, Khthoniik Cerviiks refines the interplay between the berserk and the calculated on this record. Meticulously composed intricate song structures are constantly threatening to splinter into a caterwauling spiraling abyss. Æequiizoiikum, all the songs all at once are both overwhelmingly intense and infinitely subtle.
Dystopic quasi-robotic voices welcome us to hell at the beginning and release us into nothingness at the record's end. Soaring leads in the guitar's upper registers abound throughout the set; in fact, I'm given to think that the band may even be playing in standard tuning, which is quite an unusual approach in music that's this extreme. The churning riff that begins the fifth track, "Para-Dog-Son - Demagoron", reminds me of the late-great Howls of Ebb, with whom Khthoniik Cerviiks released a split in 2017. The three bars of blistering bass solo twelve seconds into track two, "Odyssey 3000", ramp up the momentum for the onslaught that is to come. The backing vocals four minutes and twenty seconds into track three, "Æequiizoiikum - Mothraiik Rites" - howling about swallowing the truth - harken a majestic and powerful climax.
According to the band, "the album’s title means age or era of sameness. It refers to a dystopian setting that is characterized by dehumanization and individual instability as indoctrinated by a technocratic, quasi robotic, ruling class." In the midst of this barren desolate hellscape, in this era of indoctrinated sameness that we call reality, with Æequiizoiikum, Khthoniik Cerviiks offer up delicious refreshment.