Band:	Arizmenda
Album:	Without Circumference Nor Center
Style:	Psychedelic black metal
Release date:	May 2011
Guest review by:	Slayer666

Odes Of Prurience
01. Endless Hunger And Pain... The Need To Feed
02. Riders Of The Pale Horse... Crucifixion Of The Worm
03. Tear You Out From Within... Tear You Out With My Sin

Odes Of Satiation
04. Virginity Without Breath... Touch Me
05. Swallowing Seas Of Dirac... Smashing Vessels Spilling Thought
06. Embrace Beauty In Your Arms... And Slit Her Throat

If you still haven't heard Arizmenda's debut, you need to drop whatever you're doing and go listen to it. Got a date with an Italian supermodel? Forget that bitch, go listen to the album. Took an arrow in the knee? Pull it out and rush off to get that record. House on fire? I don't care, just go listen to Within The Vacuum Of Infinity already. That said, Without Circumference Nor Center is less of a must-listen than its incredible predecessor. Somewhere in the process of transition between Arizmenda's full-on psychedelic black metal to a much more raw, lo-fi sound, a chunk of magic was lost: leaving us with an album which, albeit great in its own right, doesn't exactly live up to the predecessor.

Without Circumference Nor Center is a somewhat straightforward black metal assault, while still keeping in touch with the psychedelia that made Within The Vacuum Of Infinity such an incredible experience. What you will hear are long tracks that drown and suffocate, overwhelm and madden. Dissonant guitars shrouded in seemingly infinite reverb echo through the listener's skull, dragging him to the place of his worst fears, his most disturbing nightmares. Short breathers that take the form of barely audible solos prepare the listener for the overall feeling of noisy madness, giving him just enough time to absorb what he had heard thus far and get ready for the next stage of this chocking, nasty vileness. Some cleaner melodies and riffs that can be picked apart through the sea of dissonance are perhaps the eeriest, most ominous usages of electric guitars I've heard thus far. While the guitars beat and abuse your tortured puny psyche, Eduardo - handling the vocal duties - sounds as if he was screaming in pain through a ripped, blood-filled throat. Just like every other element of the sound, the vocals are drowned, distant and at the edge of hearing.

However, in order to hear anything but static noise on this album, great sound reproducing equipment and highly trained ears are needed. Without Circumference Nor Center features some of the most lo-fi production you'll ever hear, bordering on unlistenable. And that is perhaps the album's biggest weakness. With slightly cleaner production, the DIY effect necessary for this kind of music would definitively not be lost, and we would get to hear some amazing melodies more clearly. The way it is now, the album comes off as too rough around the edges, like someone had a grand idea he carried out without paying attention to the little details.

Nonetheless, as flawed as it may be, Arizmenda's second offering remains one of 2011's strongest black metal efforts, which says a lot. It is also a contender for 2011's most inaccessible album, a trait that will cause many to dismiss it before giving it enough time to be fully absorbed and enjoyed.