Metal Underground.com

Only the band's third full-length release since 1999 (ready to wait another 14 or so years till album number 4?), “Ia Pazuzu” is a sledgehammer to the head delivered with the precision and timing of a hydraulic press. Mashing up a fuzzy industrial guitar tone with full throttle black metal, half of the album crushes everything in its path at top speed, while the other half unexpectedly transitions into symphonic and ambient territory.

With the exception of the twelve second intro and a handful of very brief guitar-only segments, many of these tracks don't feature one single moment without blast beats. Not one. Let that sink in for a moment, because that will be the defining characteristic of the album that determines if you'll love or hate “Ia Pazuzu.” Short of bionic arm replacements, it seems highly unlikely this material could possibly be played live without a drum machine.

On the one hand, the relentless drum explosions are absolutely pummeling and really get the aggression across. On the other hand, the overly repetitive nature of the near-constant blasts with no respite can become grating if you aren't just listening to one song at a time. Drum issues aside, there's a lot of interesting things going on with the sound of “Ia Pazuzu,” from the thrashy guitars on “Salvation Through Vengeance” behind the wall of blasting drum noise and the more fully realized industrial/electronic sounds on “Silent Springs” and “Genocide Bliss.”

The “Angelmaker” track changes gears drastically, with a voice over and a hypnotic guitar tone in the background that shift into old school symphonic black metal before ending with a child crying and the sound of crackling fire. “The Abyss of Shadows,” meanwhile, is an entirely ambient track with reverberated synth effects and heavily distorted vocals echoing in the background, and the disc then ends on three minutes of nothing but the sound of air moving through space with the title track.

A bit all over the place between the quiet ambient tracks and the heavy blasting tracks, Diabolicum's third full-length is a mixed bag with an identity crisis, but the core sound will work for fans of industrial black metal like Aborym or bands that skirt the line between industrial and symphonic like Kovenant.