Album Review: Azell - Astralis (2025, Rottweiler Records)
- Stuart Ball
- Oct 12
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 8
Written: 12th October 2025
When I reviewed Azell’s first album – Death Control - in 2024 (full review here) it was extremely fascinating to dive into their death doom influenced sludge metal given the band members - D X and C X – history in the comedy metal troupe Timōrātus. Death Control was a dense and unforgiving in places but the sheer weight of the riffs made the album a mostly compelling listen. With Astralis, Azell aim to take the band’s sound further while continuing their love of dark science-fiction inspired stories. A concept album in nature, Astralis is an odyssey of loss, discovery and transcendence. Interestingly, the album is accompanied by a novella which adds immersive details, helping to add more texture to the overall experience. My comments about the narrative are drawn from both the book and the album but any quotes below are from the lyrics.
From The Womb of Oblivion opens the album with a few seconds of deep throbbing notes before the arrival of typically colossal riffs. Azell waste no time in diving into the album’s narrative with astronauts Amanda and Kurt witnessing the destruction of the Earth. We watch the Earth ignite in flames / A flash of light, our home erased / Silence screams as oceans burn /The world we knew is gone. Both D X and C X contribute to the vocals as if in conversation, commenting on what they are seeing. Each has their own style of delivery – D X more abyssal and C X more visceral - and it is a potent combination. A juggernaut of a song, it is unmovable in its sonic attack.
Monolithic Terror draws out the notes and further portentous feelings are immediately apparent. High above the devastating chords, an almost imperceptible guitar plays adding an atmosphere of terror. C X’s vocals are imbued with a screaming anguish as the story turns and an impossible entity emerges from Earth’s ashes. Vast, shifting and alive, it probes, attacks and spreads, warping space. Again, the duo use their different vocal styles to tell different parts of the story. Terror, begins, to breathe… from the husk of our home / Massive, black, and void… shapelessly filling the sky / Shifting, shadow, amassed… it’s hunger fixed on us both / Born, from, ruin… hatched from the end of our world. While, for the most part, the instrumentation is unrelenting, there are moments of pause such as the quieter central section during which it can be imagined that the astronauts are watching on, frozen in disbelief, unable to move or respond to what is happening.
When Darkness Unfolds does add a little variation to the musical aspects of the album. It is still based around the crushing waves of sludge doom but there are moments where the tempo changes, percussion makes use of double kick and short breaks in the titanic stomps allow for a little respite. A feature that Azell have retained from their debut album is that they are in no hurry to tell their tales and the gargantuan low-end bass keeps the rumbling, intense brooding at the forefront of their music. The production on this album is a step up from Death Control; however, there are moments where the guitar that sometimes plays above main riffs would benefit from being higher in the mix. Instrumental Waves of Remembrance is well positioned on the album and provides a tonal detour without losing any of its impact. In the story, this chapter finds Amanda and Kurt drifting in hyper-sleep, reliving cherished memories from Earth, until unease intrudes upon dreams. Making this track an instrumental makes perfect sense and, by the standards of this album at least, there are moments of relative calm before the destructive isolation appears once more.
The Crumbling Facade returns us to the cosmic sludge avalanche of the first three songs – at least for the first three minutes - but there are further signs that Azell are trying to expand what they offered on their debut album. Twisted but melodic guitar – notably far more audible than on some tracks – entwines with C X’s aggressive vocals during the final ninety seconds. The closing solo is one of the most unique elements across the entire album. Hostage to the Machine – in which Amanda and Kurt battle the Astralis’s AI and sever its control – reverts, at least musically, to a very similar tone to the majority of that which we have heard so far. Some listeners may feel that this constant density dulls its impact over time; however, there are some moments of diversity such as the slow, subterranean distortion to be found during the first half of Shifting Reality.
Just when we might think Azell might continue in the style we have become accustomed to, they unleash Invasion of Self, a two and half-minute track that, for the first minute and half is a high tempo, partly hardcore influenced salvo, the lyrics spat in seething torment, venom coiling through every line. Raw, unflinching and brutally grim, it mirrors the narrative in which Amanda battles a parasitic alien presence invading her mind, blurring identity and sanity as it feeds. It lives beneath / It steals my breath / It grows unseen / It haunts in me It drips like oil / It feeds on toil. The music slows in the second half and this is another welcome change in direction that keeps the momentum of the album flowing.
Threads of Connection is a deliberately sprawling, mysterious instrumental that spreads tendrils of sound to illustrate how the creature is spreading within Amanda. The doom influences of the band come to the fore and there is a sense of looming certainty that the character cannot escape - which is fully realised in The End Is Inevitable. This pod, my tomb, I seal it shut / To burn alone, to break / I draw it far, I bear the curse / For love, I choose the stake. C X is an accomplished vocalist and she effectively exposes the distress and chaotic swirl of Amanda’s thoughts.
Astralis ends with the longest track on the album: the seven and a half minute Time Slows To Nothing. An almost completely instrumental piece that, without revealing the conclusion of the story, works exceptionally well when reading the chapter in the book alongside it. Time Slows To Nothing is the most surprising and varied song on the album. Azell’s penchant for letting tracks develop organically works perfectly here. Ticking clocks, obsidian stygian riffs and an inescapable foreboding set the scene before synths, an ending monologue from astronaut Kurt and most surprisingly, saxophone leads us towards the cliffhanger ending. This is the most adventurous Azell have ever been.
Overall, Astralis is a commanding journey through crushing riffs, haunting atmospheres and visceral vocals, showing Azell's growth since Death Control. While its density could - to some listeners - feel overwhelming, dynamic shifts like the reflective Waves of Remembrance or the ferocious Invasion of Self keep the album compelling and textured, even if its running time of almost one hour pushes this. The accompanying novella is not a literary masterpiece but it certainly enriches the narrative, giving Amanda and Kurt's story extra depth. It invites repeated listens more readily than Death Control and, on occasion, unveils subtle layers and hidden nuances. Join the crew of the Astralis here…
Astralis is released on 17th October 2025.
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