A bevy of black clad figures converged upon L.A.'s  5 Star Bar, an ominous conclave of sin and debacherous devil may care antics, tonight hosting the Netherlands most heinous and arcane sect Asagraum. Lilith's crotch was wet tonight, surely satiated by the notion of her minions on earth polluting moral ears with undiluted satanic noise. But, more on that later. One doesn't necessarily discover something new everyday, but on this day I did. Storming the stage like spectres of nihilism at the gates of babylon L.A 's own sinister brethren Cultus Profano struck their first ominous chord. Intriguing indeed, the female singer/guitarist scowled and grimaced whilst summoning beautifully discordant melodicism from her axe. Her blackened cobra lungs spewed antichristian venom with wicked glee. The drummer also sang which gave this twisted trio the strength and lethality of a just sharpened scythe. The decompositions were ominous, striking mordant feelings in the audience. Henceforth sluggish heads began to bang. Cultus Profano had a similar sound to Dark Funeral but contained more doomy nuances and abstract enunciations. Definitely a black metal juggernaut of the Los Angeles scene.

   As the moon waned, bathing the filthy city in it's omnipotent catharsis the lurid ladies of Asagraum entered the stage amidst a cacaphony of sublimated white noise. Lilith rubbed her clit harder as the girls charged into 'Transformation" an ode to the shapeshifting charnel deities from the arcane realm of shadows. Lead shrieker/Axe wielder Obscura meant business, hissing and spitting poisonous toxin whilst promoting the darkest arts, looking ever so desirable in her spandex and knee high leather boots. V-Kaos on guitar was a perturbingly disturbing juxtaposition of life and death. A young Angela Jolie melded with a deceased hooker, her corpsepaint a reptilian mockery promising not only S&M cruelty but mental scars via luciferian riffs. Anvil slammer A drove the charge during the intricately woven arrangement of "Leviathan' and Bassist Mortifero burned holes through the souls of onlookers with her fire glare and 4 string embelishments. By the unpure blessings of hell the macabre mistresses bulldozed through "Gospel Of Ignition" and "Daar Waar ik Sterf' which contains an inherently malefic riff that sounds like a malevolent industrial mechanism bent on murder. It brings to mind the drill bit through the cranium sequence during Lucio Fulci's amorally ghastly classic Gates Of Hell. All in all a great evening of soul purging black metal madness. I left satiated knowing the devil had been appeased.