Vehemency
The Absence of Light is the first demo by this Portugalian black metal act Ars Diavoli. The key word here is distortion. Production-wise The Absence of Light is very raw, being almost like a wall of white noise where you can still decipher the instruments easily. The sound is massive.
The three black metal songs are driven by melancholic guitar melodies that stand out the most on ”Human Mass Suicide”, which is the highlight of this tape. The vocal style reminds me of Wrest from Leviathan. "Horizonte Perdido" is an outro that ends the demo with calm yet ominous atmosphere, made with synths and picked guitar notes with delay effect. The contrast between the massive previous song ”Human Mass Suicide” and this outro is huge, it is like the calmness after a furious storm.
The other two tracks don’t reach as far as the previously mentioned, but they are decent too. The drums are programmed, but thanks to the noisy production they dont bother me. Thus The Absence of Light is a nice demo but nothing ground-breaking, so it is a worthy check if you’re into some simple and raw, yet melancholic black metal.