Phantom - Angel of Disease (Black Metal)

Angel of Disease sees Phantom expand its lexicon of technically challenging dissonant black metal to incorporate more atmospheric death metal influences, somewhat in the continuity of their previous album, Memento Mori.

Where Phantom excel is in the build up and expansion of macabre, horror-fuelled atmospheres, contained within a framework of dark riff labyrinthes that go back to the early days of Withdrawal and expand on them with more death metal technique.

While Phantom's magnum opus in this style is often considered to be either The Epilogue to Sanity or Mindless Horror, this album Angel of Disease is a crucial milestone in the history of both atmospheric black metal and technical death metal.

Angel of Disease isn't an easy to listen to album, as Phantom's music pushes the limits of atonality into uncharted territories. And yet, however dissonant the music may get, Phantom always maintains Angel of Disease's claustrophobic atmospheres that are melodically coherent through the use of phrasal riffs, assembled in a decrepit maze of chromatic notes, that relate to one another both rhythmically and harmonically for the best of ritualistic black metal.