review by: Roberto Martinelli

Have you ever taken a long car trip? You know, the kind that sees you driving on long stretches of freeway that is straight as an arrow, with little or no cars around you? Perhaps you're listening to music or whatever it is that dulls your attention from your driving, look down at the speedometer, and see that you're going 100 miles per hour. Funny, but it doesn't seem that fast. The absence of acceleration/deceleration and turns in the road has kept you from noticing how fast you really are traveling. This is what listening to Krisiun is like.

Yes, Krisiun play fast, and are flawlessly tight, but they are a criminal bore, as they steadfastly refuse to incorporate dynamics into their music. To make matters worse on this particular album are the drums, which we immediately notice are too loud. This problem would be lessened if only a kick drum sound that resembles anything found in acoustic drum nature had been chosen instead of the crap triggered job that has been opted for. In terms of all time rankings, the sound of the never wavering kick drum cadence on Ageless Venemous rivals that found on Cradle of Filth's Cruelty and the Beast in regards to how garbage it is. The woody thwack of the computer generated sound reminds us of an amplified woodpecker on overdrive.

Krisiun doesn't do too much to pique our interest with the riffs they write, either, as most are quite banal and almost sing-songey in a death metal way. The area of the album that does provide for some exhilaration comes from the blazing guitar solos. Unfortunately, these solos play a role that is entirely too short in the makeup of the songs to make much difference in the final impact of the music. Even if the solos were longer, we can't help but wonder how soon the unsurprisingly mechanical and direct approach would grow tiresome.

Ageless Venemous works best as a CD you would throw on while doing something that would prevent you from scrutinizing the music too closely. The album would work well as a sonic background to playing video games, as the never varying tempos and vocals of the material makes for good filler.

This is the strange truth about the duality of Krisiun's Jekyll and Hyde persona: I may never have seen a more killer live show than Krisiun's performance at Metalfest 2001, despite having heard their material on CD before and largely feeling the same as I do about Ageless Venemous. While the jaw dropping guitar leads and overall energy work very well in a live setting, the very same elements fall flat on CD. It's ironic that while this album was obviously produced with the object in mind of being totally brutal, Ageless Venemous instead comes off as anything but.