review by: Roberto Martinelli

This album has been getting mixed reviews amongst reliable contacts of Maelstrom's. Maelstrom's ~Vargscarr~ and Leviathan's Wrest both don't think much of it, but I think it's excellent.

Satanized is very much a continuation of what the band lay down on its previous album, Channeling the Quintessence of Satan; it's a tough listen in the way it alienates you with its mixture of blistering speed and cold, mathematical riffs. Satanized also reminds me a good deal of a lesser version of that Abigor side project Heidenreich. Like the latter, the music on this album is bizarre and angular. The listening experience is made even more jagged by the strange time in which the vocals are delivered.

The guitars pierce and bite as they play undecipherable riffs. It's true that many of these riffs start to sound the same in the album, but the sheer technicality of them make them enjoyable. The songs get more distinct on the second half of the disk.

Perhaps Abigor feels it's time to discontinue the black metal imagery of dark, primordial forests. Instead, Satanized's material has a certain cyber feel to it, without being techno in the least. The alien aspects of the music reflect the sidereal Satan imagery used throughout the album, which contains song titles such as "Battlestar Abigor," "Galaxies and Aeons Decline" and my personal favorite, "Nocturnal Stardust." Like it or not, Abigor is exploring something a little different while remaining black metal.