{"id":573615,"date":"2026-03-31T20:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573615\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:27:12","slug":"ain-sof-aur-theos-vel-samael-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573615\/","title":{"rendered":"Ain Sof Aur – Theos-Vel-Samael Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Be honest: what do you expect experimental blackened death metal steeped in Left-Hand-Path Occultism to sound like? Dissonant? Oppressively heavy? Rhythmically complex and meandering? You wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong\u2014in general, or in the particular case of Ain Sof Aur. Stereotypes exist for a reason. But Theos-Vel-Samael\u2014serves as a vessel not only for a ceremonial invocation of wisdom-bringing darkness, but also the interaction between musical identity and ideology. Our assumptions about the sound and style of heavy music associated with certain fringe spiritualities are a strange mirror of the demonisation heaped upon metal overall in mainstream media from the Satanic Panic onwards, though informed at least through experience and some degree of appreciation rather than ignorance and distaste. These ideas break down when we turn to extreme metal, where Ain Sof Aur and others like them sit: a sphere defined by pushing boundaries of complexity, intensity, and heaviness\u2014itself a natural extension of the wider genre\u2019s core trait of subversion. Theos-Vel-Samael is an extreme metal album expressing mysticisms at least adjacent to Luciferianism, and using any preconceived notion of these ideologies obscures the music\u2019s actuality.<\/p>\n

Theos-Vel-Samael prompts me to wax philosophical by its very essence. Its 45-minute runtime is divided into three movements simply labelled \u201cI,\u201d \u201cII,\u201d and \u201cIII\u201d\u2014though Ain Sof Aur explain that each respectively embody the progressive stages of the invocation: \u201cvision,\u201d \u201cforce,\u201d and \u201caction.\u201d This itself is a kind of stereotype, and one could speculate on whether the steady contraction of song length across the record is saying anything about the significance placed on or effort required in each of \u201cvision,\u201d \u201cforce,\u201d and \u201caction\u201d. The way these pieces enact their theme has more in common with a wonky, progressive strain of technical death metal than it does a diabolical, vehemently evil form of black metal; in many ways, it is weirdly reminiscent of Cryptic Shift in a Veilburner kind of setting, by way of Altar of the Horned God. \u201cI\u201d subverted my expectations entirely with its overwhelmingly exuberant tone\u2014albeit in an odd key and time signature for much of the time\u2014and \u201cII\u201d with lengthy passages of almost mellow atmospheric strumming. This isn\u2019t a criticism but rather the point: The literal incantations that comprise the lyrics, and the artists\u2019 say-so, are the tethers to the occult and so the almost Hathian melodeath charges and noodling amidst croaks and roars are to be taken at face value.<\/p>\n

\ufeffTheos-Vel-Samael by AIN SOF AUR<\/a><\/p>\n

The other reason Theos-Vel-Samael causes me to wax philosophical is that it leaves me with strangely little else to say. There is much to appreciate: M.H.S\u2019 gargling roars; L.B.W\u2019s vivacious drum performance; the aforementioned creative approach to marrying discordant malice and melodiousness in such experimental, otherwise malevolent metal; Ain Sof Aur can turn a melodic phrase (\u201cI,\u201d \u201cIII\u201d) and dramatic flourish (\u201cII,\u201d \u201cIII\u201d). Yet it all feels somehow unfocused, and so less impactful. Moments of sanguinity are somehow bled dry\u2014sometimes through repetition, but largely simply because they fade into the surrounding fluctuations of dissonance and harmony, choppy technical tempos, and the equal minimalism of pared-back stalks and full-speed double-bass (\u201cI\u201d is the worst offender here). \u201cIII\u201d is possibly the strongest of the three tracks, arguably because of its superlative brevity condenses if not excises the detours from what is a solid, decisively unsettling extreme death metal composition. Indeed, taken piecemeal, Theos-Vel-Samael can captivate and swallow (just after \u201cI\u201d\u2018s midpoint, the minutes just before \u201cII\u201ds, \u201cIII\u201d\u2018s closing act), but as a whole, it functions more as an enjoyably creepy, if hazily remembered, background soundscape.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And yet what is Ain Sof Aur\u2019s objective with Theos-Vel-Samael other than to evoke some esoteric ceremony with their interpretive music? Should the freeform nature of this expression surprise or disappoint? Was I ever going to put one of these songs on a workout playlist? The writing could use some editing to be sure, but the musical elements themselves are stellar\u2014everything from the eerie ambience to the most violent technicality is executed assertively. I enjoy my experience of the rite even if it doesn\u2019t convert me.<\/p>\n

To be brief\u2014for the first time in this review\u2014don\u2019t let an intimidating subgenre label, theme, or I, Voidhanger\u2019s reputation colour your feelings about Theos-Vel-Samael. It\u2019s creepy and unusual, but with a firm grip on more familiar death metal stylings. It doesn\u2019t waste (much) time meandering, but it does have room to breathe. You could do far worse when dabbling in the occult.<\/p>\n

Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger<\/a>
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Be honest: what do you expect experimental blackened death metal steeped in Left-Hand-Path Occultism to sound like? Dissonant?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43409,976,220399,220400,23275,217042,49,48,220401,978,75,220402,2833,203837,341,196537,208,209,220403,126582,220404],"class_list":{"0":"post-573615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-43409","9":"tag-3-0","10":"tag-ain-sof-aur","11":"tag-altar-of-the-horned-god","12":"tag-black-metal","13":"tag-brazilian-metal","14":"tag-ca","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-cryptic-shift","17":"tag-death-metal","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-experimental-death-metal","20":"tag-i","21":"tag-mar26","22":"tag-music","23":"tag-progressive-black-metal","24":"tag-review","25":"tag-reviews","26":"tag-theos-vel-samael","27":"tag-veilburner","28":"tag-voidhanger-records"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}