Servant – Aetas Ascensus (Review)

This is the second album from German black metal band Servant.

Aetas Ascensus contains 48 minutes of black metal played in the old-school Scandinavian way. Competent in both the melodic and symphonic styles, Servant’s music is effortless to enjoy if you’re a fan of the cold blackened arts.

The promo blurb mentions band such as Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, and Gorgoroth, and these act as starting points for Aetas Ascensus. To these, I’d also add acts like Dark Funeral and Watain.

Servant offer a considered blackened assault on the senses, one that’s counterbalanced by malevolent grandeur and macabre majesty. They pummel with vicious blast beats and lacerate with sharp melodic blades, while also crafting dark moods and grim, malefic atmosphere. Despite the fury, theirs is a controlled, deliberate assault. Servant are professional in their application of violence, and deliver scathing aggression with accomplished ease.

These songs are well-written and executed by people that clearly know and understand the genre. With blackened dynamics, fiery presence, grim melody, and song-based hooks, Servant build their own fortress in the underworld of the black metal wilderness. They play this sort of music very well and with great skill, so it’s easy to slip into Aetus Ascensus and just enjoy its traditional delivery. Replete with scything riffs, a vocalist that’s very capable, and more atmospheric and melodic strengths than you might be expecting, Aetus Ascensus is a record with much to recommend itself.

Aetas Ascensus is a record that I could easily have imagined listening to in the late 90s, so authentically of the style is it. Servant know what they’re doing here, and they do it with infernal passion.

Very highly recommended.