A.M.S.G. is a black metal band from Canada. Their name stands for “Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam”, which in Latin means “For the greater glory of Satan”. As you can obviously tell, these guys are all about the Satan. Also, just like any other band that places a great deal of emphasis on Satan, they're completely ridiculous. Just look at these jokers. Not only that, but in the liner notes of their debut album, Anti-Cosmic Tyranny, they list their activities as “hostage taking” and “suicide bombing”. I can't tell whether these guys are trolling or serious. Of course, we're not here to focus on that, we're here to focus on the music.
The music is essentially orthodox black metal. I swear it sounds almost exactly like what the Norwegians produced. They frequently switch between mid-paced demon dirges and infernal blast beats. The snare drum sound quite raw and there's a great deal of cymbal work on display. The vocals consist of an impish croak. Attila Csihar would be proud of this guy's performance. As for the guitars, they sound like they were pulled straight from an early 90s black metal album, from the riffs all the way down to the guitar tone. These riffs range from the fast and violent to the slow and sinister. The black metal may be very orthodox, but they also include some unorthodox elements, such as strange vocal effects and odd bass work, but the most prominent unorthodox element is the saxamaphone that tends to show up on occasion.
Although the black metal is good, I have two big problems with this album: there's too much filler and the music gets too repetitive. These guys have a tendency to throw in lots of noise elements into their songs. I don't mind that, but my problem here is that they last too long and feel like a cheap attempt to pad out the album. As for the black metal, it's played really well, but it starts to feel repetitive about halfway through the album. Again, this feels like an attempt to pad out the album. If they had gotten rid of the filler and the repetitive parts, then they would have cut down the album's length from forty-seven minutes to only half an hour. Overall, these guys possess great musicianship, but they really need to work on their songwriting. Better luck next time, I guess.
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