For the best part of the last decade, the World Terror Committee imprint has launched itself to the top of the pile by consistently releasing potent and, importantly, modern interpretations of our beloved black metal. Last year we were delighted to see Order of Orias make their righteous label debut with Inverse, but WTC unleashed another obscure gem around the same time that seems to have slipped under the radar. Adustum’s Searing Fires and Lucid Visions has rarely left this lurker’s decks since its arrival, despite going criminally unnoticed by the wider fanbase.

Mastermind Ïal Lehmti I'Riv, taken by http://jeroenvranken.wordpress.com/

Belgium hardly leaps out as a black metal hotspot – only Enthroned and Alkerdeel immediately come to mind as acts of notable quality – but Adustum’s first effort goes some way towards upping their country’s stakes on the international scene. There’s no big secret as to what makes Searing Fires and Lucid Visions so great, no clumsy rhetoric or hidden agenda meddling with the music; it’s just nothing but cold-hearted, orthodox black metal from start to finish. Lyrics summon the devil within and call upon Thelemic deities amid tales of carnal conquests and occult enlightenment – all topics that will appeal to disciples of the Left-Hand Path. Carried by the ripping assault of the three-piece band and preached by the grim croak of frontman and composer Ïal Lehmti I’Riv, Adustum’s vision comes across as brutally honest and adversarial.

Although the style’s name might suggest otherwise, the black metal I find most moving always evokes a number of different shades and hues within its unique musical tapestry. Adustum triumphs in channelling deep reds, oranges and yellows through its incendiary guitar tone, implanting the flickering flames of Hell in the mind’s eye, the exact scenes hinted at by the album’s title. This infernal “colour” is best translated by the rapid power-chord progressions and fleeting tremolos that litter the first two tracks, ‘Vohir – Exvocatium Daemonicus’ and ‘Ravenous Copulation Upon Her Altar Of Catamenia’. Clocking in at five minutes apiece, these raucous hymns quickly establish Adustum’s identity as one rooted in tradition but executed with a deft modern hand.

The album peaks with third song ‘The Eulogy Of One Through Three Times Three’, which, despite being 11 minutes long, leaves the listener yearning for more as it fades into nothingness. The way the drum phrases evolve beneath the primitive roar of the guitar and bass is pure magick, and the atmospheres generated by this interplay of rhythm and melody spark frequent pangs of what I can only describe as “hope” or “joy”. It’s downright sinister. Unfortunately, by this point there is just one song left of the record, ‘Psalm CLVI – The Rites Of Lunar Blood’, but its thrashing intensity and haunting tribal interlude make it a worthy closer. Again, at nine minutes, Adustum’s lengthier tracks of the second half shine through with their labyrinthine composition and addictive, memorable riffing.

Really, the only complaints that can be made against the album don’t even concern the music. For one, Searing Fires… begs to be at least half an hour longer. Just as you feel you’re getting to grips with the band’s approach, the record ends, leaving the listener to play it over and over until satisfied. Perhaps it’s more constructive to think of it as an EP rather than a full-length. Those struggling to digest Dødsengel’s Imperator will likely get a kick out of this, however. The other complaint regards the sleeve design, the colour scheme of which makes the lyrics nigh-on impossible to read for even the most dedicated analyst. These quibbles aside, though, Adustum have leapt into the fore with a stunning debut, oozing conviction and belief in all they say and do. LURKER awaits more from this band with great anticipation.

Drown in the qliphothic corridors of Searing Fires and Lucid Visions by ordering the CD now from the World Terror Committee.

“Other people’s nighttime would be our daytime; we would be doing things when everyone else was asleep. And we brought that idea into our music as well, so that we were almost pushing ourselves into the dreamtime and into the unconscious.” – Rob “The Baron” Miller

In Part I of this interview, The Baron and I talked about Amebix’s bastard descent from non-metal sounds such as gothic post-punk and 70s prog. Understanding this diverse musical ancestry is crucial to understanding Amebix, but it’s not enough. Like Throbbing Gristle, Crass and Death In June, Amebix have always been more than a music group. Their songs are the core of a broader aesthetic project, a “world” opened up through a wealth of symbolic reference points. So, I’m especially interested in the esoteric ideas and extreme experiences that have helped shape Amebix. In a way, that’s what I’ll be focusing on in the next two parts as well.

Here, we discuss mind-altering sacraments, cryptic rites, and ancient tomes. If there’s one thing that struck me about this part of the conversation, it was Rob’s sense that there is real continuity between what he does now – both in the music and at the forge – and what he was after in the earliest days of Amebix. He is profoundly oriented, in a way that the world continually tells us is impossible or undesirable. While many rock legends embody the crisis of the postmodern subject, continually re-inventing themselves or groping desperately after the chimerical promise of Authenticity, The Baron confidently pursues a unified life-work.

******

In the recent Amebix documentary, Risen, Stig mentions dropping acid and listening to Sabbath. Did LSD have much of an influence on what you dudes were doing in Amebix? And what was it like to be taking that stuff in the least hippie environment imaginable, a Bristol squat house?

There was a time when we were kind of blissfully unaware, the first couple years of living in Bristol. After the riots things were fairly open there. But then it became fairly sinister. We were dealing acid and various other different substances, so we tended to take a lot of stuff. I wasn’t a big druggie myself. My drug of choice was mainly amphetamines because I found that opened up a lot of positive energy for me: It made me write, it made me think about music, it made me stay awake and stay focused. So yes we did take acid, and I would say that with some of the music I was into to at that time, tripping turned things around a little bit. Killing Joke were always a very intense band. Hearing Killing Joke on acid, you could kind of understand where Jaz Coleman was coming from. He’s got a very primal connection, that guy, and as a consequence he can be a bit unhinged at times, but there’s some genius there.

And as for listening to Sabbath, particularly the one album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath… I’d listened to Sabbath before but that’s the album that turned me on to them, and that’s probably because I was taking acid at the time and I saw a lot of stuff in there. And like we do when we’re younger, I read a lot into music and lyrics. It was a personal disappointment to me to find out that Ozzy never wrote the lyrics to any of the Sabbath stuff. That didn’t come out until fucking 2005 or something like that, and I was shattered by it. I thought Ozzy was this lyrical genius with an innate occult understanding! There are all these things you give bands when you’re younger that aren’t necessarily there. It turns out that Geezer Butler is kind of the silent genius behind some of the lyrical ideas of Sabbath, and some of them are understatedly brilliant.

I think ‘Paranoid’, for sure!

Yeah, and I think ‘Killing Yourself To Live’ and a lot of the stuff off Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is amazing. But yeah, as I was saying, we take substances when we’re growing up in order to understand music, but we personalize it to such a great degree, we take that stuff in and we think we understand what that person was trying to say. The cold, awful, harsh reality of that is sometimes there’s a guy sitting down there in a studio trying to write some lyrics – quickly – to a riff they just put up on tape, you know? And that’s awful, because I’d really like people to be spending more time thinking about what they’re doing lyrically.

So, speaking of Sabbath’s occult tendencies and Jaz Coleman’s primal connection, what kind of role does pagan spirituality play in your life now? In the documentary you referred to yourself as a “second or third generation pagan”, and I was wondering how that came about. Were you born into a family where this was already an interest?

That’s actually Stig’s quote.

Oh, my bad!

Not a problem, that’s something that Stig did say. I’d say we were brought up in a family that was very, very open about discussing ideas, and I’m very thankful to have had that space. I wouldn’t say agnostic, I wouldn’t necessarily say pagan, but I would say open to a lot of influential streams. So no, not to contradict my brother where that’s concerned, but there’s not directly any kind of lineage there.

So how did you start getting into that sort of thing amidst the hard-bitten, rather narrow-minded “realism” of kids on the punk scene?

The big shift occurred, really, before we got to Bristol, when we moved in with Martin at the Glebe in Dartmoor. The most significant thing about that was that we changed the way we were living quite profoundly, in that we started to have this nocturnal existence where we would read, talk about ideas, and listen to music completely out of step with everything that was going on around us. Other people’s nighttime would be our daytime; we would be doing things when everyone else was asleep. And we brought that idea into our music as well, so that we were almost pushing ourselves into the dreamtime and into the unconscious. That was the most influential factor. I don’t think that going to the city and getting involved with other bands was going to change that at all. We had already been stamped with a particular identity. We had already been in-formed with the message that we needed to put across, and it was just a case of working out in what way we were going to be able to do that.

I still feel that connection with that time back in Devon, because I don’t think anything has actually changed. A lot has gone down and as individual people we’ve changed, our lifestyles have been turned around 180 degrees, but: The actual center of things is still very much there. I still recognize it and I still know that it’s there, and it’s what I refer to in the liner notes of the last album as being “the well,” that place where you go back to, and you realize it was there all along. You just come back there and you go “Fuck, great! It’s still there!”

The power remains…

The power remains.

I’m also really curious about your reading – the works of literature and poetry and whatnot that have influenced you, as well as things you just enjoy. So, to start with, what were you reading in the manor? I’m pretty sure you were reading Crowley…

Yes, but I wasn’t personally so much interested in Crowley. Stig was, and so was Martin –

Martin was really into Crowley, right?

Martin still is, indeed. He’s been doing a lot of quite interesting artwork, but he’s still pretty much spun out.

So him and Stig were doing that… I came up with Colin Wilson and The Occult, reading books that would get you involved with the mysteries without directing you down any specific path. It wasn’t until I came to Skye that I had time to sit down and start to look into particular areas… I got quite involved with Neoplatonic philosophy for a while, people like Giordano Bruno, some of the Gnostic texts and the hermetic things, and that led me towards alchemy. It’s this offshoot that’s always been considered eccentric, the pursuit of something that was ethereal or unreal. But I was also getting involved with Jungian psychology, and Jung had become quite interested in alchemy towards the end of his life. He realized that the alchemists were talking in this medieval metaphorical language about the same things that he was trying to push across to people in terms of the unconscious. Things started to make sense, things started to patch themselves together. I branched out and I read a lot of stuff.

Has the work on alchemy influenced your smithing at all, or changed the way you think about it perhaps?

Well…  It led to me being a smith, really. You’re working with all four elements, so it’s the work that involves everything. Earth, fire, air, water: They’re all involved in what you do as a smith. When I initially got involved with it, it required a great degree of concentration, and I had a freedom to work magickally as a blacksmith. These days I work for a living as a blacksmith, and it’s very seldom that I have the opportunity to go back to those roots and manifest things through fire and hammer, you know?

What sort of fiction have you read? I’ll just throw some things out there – have you read any of the old epic poetry of England, like Beowulf or The Green Knight?

I got involved fairly heavily in reading the Arthurian mythos, and that went from Tristan and Isolde through the Morte d’Artur and eventually the poetry of Tennyson, which is a reflection on that. So the Arthurian cycle influenced me very, very heavily in the work that I do. There was a response there. It gave me this idea of carrying on what I had dropped musically, and helped me find another way of understanding that.

So, was there reading you’d done as a teenager or young adult that influenced you when you were in Amebix, or was that a more free-flowing thing?

Yeah, more this and that, the things that you pick up when you’re a kid, you know? On the one hand it would be fanzines exhorting you to go form a band and play three chords, on the other hand it’d be The Illuminatus! Trilogy or something like that. As a band we were always very interested in esoteric matter as well as the more day-to-day stuff, so we were dealing with things on the street, on the level, but also trying to manifest things in a spiritual sense.

In the footsteps of Volume II, a series for  uncovering the hidden gems of an over-populated scene, comes an introduction to one of the most prolific European black metal labels that has consistently avoided the limelight.

It is hard to stress the significance Total Holocaust records has had on my appreciation of black metal. The label’s founder, Håkan, single-handedly defined my experience of depressive black metal, introduced the world to Wrest’s side project, propelled Xasthur into the underground consciousness, shaped and supported a growing throng of unique, sonically diverse projects and continued to churn out an unforgiving amount of orthodox black metal on the side. Håkan is also responsible for Visions of Suburbia, a showcase for his photography that has been used by Hateful Abandon, Emit and Nortt, among others. Any LURKER-worthy extreme music aficionado should either be well acquainted with Total Holocaust or be willing to keep an eye fixed on the activities of this hermetic, almost clandestine label. In this article, LURKER delves deep into the imprint’s history and ideology before shedding some light on current operations.

My first exposure to the label occurred during a hunt for a small, limited release by the French band Ornaments of Sin. Total Holocaust released this short-lived, anti-life EP in a limited run of 888. Shortly thereafter, Nortt’s now-seminal foray into blackened funeral doom, Graven, was unleashed in 2004.  This sealed the deal. I was a convert to the path Total Holocaust was forging. Fast-forward nearly ten years and the label has helped push Xasthur, Emit, Asoth, Lifelover, Lurker of Chalice, Nortt, Hypothermia, Make a Change… Kill Yourself, Hell Militia, Thrall, Beatrik, Heresi, Woods of Infinity and a whole host of others into the underground limelight.

THR was the gatekeeper of depressive black metal, releasing an abundance of hymns that would help to define the genre, along with a handful of releases that sadly slipped into the abyss. The depressive flame still burns to this day for Håkan with the release of Regnum’s latest opus. Aside from Xasthur, Hypothermia, Woods of Infinity and Lifelover, Total Holocaust is responsible for some of the most sorely missed charms in the genre. Beatrik is one of the latter, a little-known Italian outfit that released two full-length albums during their eight years of existence. Their style was steeped in the arpeggios of Filosofem-era Burzum and tempos varied from black to doom and back again. I’d go so far as to say Beatrik were one of the first to lay down this kind of funereal black metal (and do it far better than fellow countrymen Forgotten Tomb ever could).

Perhaps better known is Ynleborgaz’s Make a Change… Kill Yourself project, which had two releases on Total Holocaust. The trademark hypnotic riffing swings from slow-paced anguish to blast-beat elation and an enveloping sense of atmosphere are what makes Make a Change… Kill Yourself my choice for best depressive black metal ever committed to tape. It is a style much imitated and hated – but Make a Change… Kill Yourself were at the top of the game. Rarely (if ever) did a depressive black metal act balance the suffering of existence and the regal euphoria of suicide so successfully. I have it on good authority Ynleborgaz entered the studio to record a third studio effort last December. Hopefully, he can inject some immediacy and relevance to the much-maligned genre.

Xasthur was another pinnacle of the depressive black metal movement… or at least until Malefic ran out of ideas. Total Holocaust released numerous splits (including the highly sought after split with Acid Enema), reworkings (A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors) and full-length releases – including my personal favourite To Violate the Oblivious, before jumping ship to Hydra Head Records for a gloomy decline into mediocrity.

In an age where social media and online streams make lazy promotions an ingrained tendency for most labels, Total Holocaust Records stands as a fist in the face of progression. It’s one of the last labels left that shuns social media, PR companies and MP3 previews, allowing us to garner a piece of the mystique that initially drew us in to the world of black metal. A small update on the sparse website announces the latest release. There are no samples – only some visuals and words to whet your appetite. So you order, waiting patiently for a fortnight or so before a beautifully packaged CD or cassette arrives at your door. There is no instant gratification or ADHD-riddled flicking back between iTunes and your tabbed browser. You sit down with the physical release. You dedicate time to unraveling intricacies in the sound. A habit, and essential function to properly understanding and enjoying extreme music, that is quickly disappearing.

Nothing under the THR imprint can be labeled as “flavour of the moment”. Håkan has steadfastly chosen orthodox and underground bands over larger, more established fads. He has steered clear of the whole USBM undertaking. Instead, THR has focused solely on orthodox black metal in the European vein or gems that transcend genre pigeonholing completely. Slowly but surely, he has crafted a treasure trove of hidden releases that remain uncovered by the metal media circuit because they do not comply with the current underground trend.

Håkan outright refuses to give an interview about the label, suggesting he might inadvertently paint a certain release or artist in the wrong light. There should be no personalities or opinions behind a record label – their sole purpose should be to provide a canvas for the artist. One should value the integrity of the art, those you work with, and the self. For Håkan, the silence is comforting. The success of his philosophy speaks for itself; some 140 releases, mostly out of print, and a roster that nigh-on bridges the entire black metal macrocosm.

No compromise. No attention seeking. No MP3. No bullshit.

Oremus – Popioły

This Polish outfit draws heavily from Ingmar Bergman’s masterwork on death and existence The Seventh Seal, along with other less acclaimed moments in Scandinavian cinema. It is the most canonical of Total Holocaust’s recent releases and serves as an excellent antidote to the underground’s recent obsession with progression and innovation. Sometimes all I want to hear is blasting orthodoxy fuelled by something true and righteous, and Popioły provides this in spades.

Oremus’s sound is characterized by the melodic guitar riffs that first propelled non-Norwegian black metal to fame. This, their debut full-length, clocks in at just over 35 minutes and, although short for an album, packs more memorable riffs and segments of atmosphere than any of their contemporaries. The sound shuffles between moments of Scandinavian classicism and righteous bombast and all the while vocalist ‘S’ delivers his prophesies from a pulpit of ashen rage.

The digipack layout marries a cryptic, grey scale art direction with beautifully ornate visions from yesteryear. A cardboard housing holds a fixed pamphlet of lyrics and musings, coupled with a classic black-and-white aesthetic that sits perfectly with the chess game musings of Antonius Block.

Grim Funeral – A Grim Funeral to the Soul of this World

Barcelona-based solo act Grim Funeral’s debut full-length is a twisting tumult that unites the chainsaw guitars of Darkspace’s spells with the unease and disgust that made Galgeras such a brilliant discovery. While the French may have made a name for themselves peddling the most unforgiving raw black metal, over the border in Spain things are looking a lot bleaker.

Grim Funeral take obvious inspiration from the Burzum-influenced depressive standard of drawn-out arpeggio arrangements and melancholic ambience. Tempos vary from mid-paced to fast and the whole recording is soaked in fuzzed-out treble grandeur. It transcends the mediocrity that plagued the depressive scene – this has an obvious character of going far beyond depressive black metal, pushing over into the raw, chaotic territory masterminded by Haemoth. This is unrefined, trance-inducing black metal quite unlike any of the influences listed.

Ill Omen – Compendium Melificarum

Divinity through Un-Creation blew me away in the winter of 2011. That winter was cold, raw and full of second wave black metal. This compilation, released towards the end of 2010, collects numerous unavailable demos from 2009. The sound is unashamedly amateur with little to no production value. If you can get past the demo-like sound to the actual music on display, you are greeted with a malicious, melodic and highly competent strain of traditional black metal. This is a total gem regardless of assembly methods, though. The frozen, ice-like casing of the base production only accentuates the cold, distant genius that lies at the heart of Ill Omen. The long, drawn-out tremolo riffs that cave and break into sections of brutally simplistic power chords sound so much like Horna at their finest.

Ill Omen is a great example of chaste, orthodox black metal done correctly. Production, recording and presentation are not key concepts here. What matters is the atmosphere, heart and composition. All three demos collected here in Compendium Melificarum are a tour de force of will to power and summon great memories of what initially piqued my interest in the genre. Great to know there are still projects out there that can summon the righteous indignation of black metal’s ancestry.

Haud Mundus/Wormlust – Oblivio Oppositus

Haud Mundus & Wormlust Split CD

Pure, debilitating bleak reveries from the Icelandic genius behind Wormlust. The two tracks on display here are monuments of aggression and frightful visions. Stylistically akin to the more possessed moments of Leviathan, Wormlust weaves horrifying atmospheres with drawn out ambient sections and angular guitar melodies. The vocals, an acerbic mixture of full-bodied howls and throat-centered murmurs, cap the lyrical content perfectly. Wormlust has more in common with the modern school of black metal, with tremolo’d, drawn-out riffs and predilection for grandeur atmospheres: a haunting, visceral journey through the catacombs of delirious nightmares. Varied and engaging, a voyage quite unlike the stagnant beast that was Wrest’s latest effort.

Haud Mundus meet Wormlust with a more restrained take on proceedings. Sections of haunting ambience are interspersed with powerful forays into minimal but engaging black metal, akin to the industrial tinge present on Lunar Aurora’s latest opus. Haud Mundus’s strength differs from the abrasive, engaging and manifold textures of Wormlust by burrowing into your consciousness with hypnotic, subliminal tones. You become entranced. Both projects represent varied, upper-tier black metal complete with deep, empowered production values and should not be missed. One of the most under-acknowledged splits in recent years.

Holmgang – Gengangerens Kvad

Featuring Ynleborgaz of Make a Change… Kill Yourself, Holmgang’s take on black metal is blasting, unrelenting and highly melodic. Vicious marches of bombast melt instinctively into full chorded meanderings through forest and battle before building up speed and melody and exploding in fully orchestrated sections of pure majesty. Reminiscent of the guitar driven creativity championed by Taake and the double kick drum volition of Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism era Immortal.

The focal point herein is the incredible guitar and drum work, which drifts between catchy power chord euphoria and driving, tremolo riffs not unlike medieval-era Satyricon. There are even moments when guitar patterns and vocals align to give off an aura of Celestia in their prime. In truth, though, what keeps me coming back to this release is the excellent coupling of aggression and majesty. There is enough variation and creativity in all of the instruments to elevate this beyond the stratum of impressionist black metal. Lurkers of the Scandinavian sound are sure to fall in love with the battle calls of Holmgang.

Thronum Vrondor – II: Conducting the Orchestra of Evil

Thronum Vrondor’s approach to black metal is a subtle one. At first glance you are greeted with competent, orthodox black metal that does little to ascend beyond the tried templates. Digging a little deeper reveals an intensely complex structure to the cacophony. Guitars are constantly altering foundational riffs and drums always echoing some unusual rhythm or beat from the previous bar.  While not as engaging as their labelmates, this Belgium hordes strength lies in the details. It is hard not to fall under the spell of this guitar-centered outfit.

Tracks like ‘None Shall Remain’ see a lead guitar take center stage for the entirety of the piece, elevating the two dimensional base of repeated riffs into a reverie of misery and suffering. The glory is truly in the particulars, and with II: Conducting the Orchestra of Evil, Thronum Vrondor succeed in providing a refreshingly detailed, bizarre twist to proceedings.

Aska – Där Vanvett Gror

Ululating, crazed, monotonous black metal in the vein of Blodulv. Drum patterns and riffs rarely deviate, which allows the recording to develop this amazing hypnotic power. The delivery evolves by showing slight variations in a theme every so often and thus gives off the kind of empowering simplicity that makes Akitsa so successful. The lyrics hint towards a hateful, misery-drenched ride through the psyche of a drug-addled, self-afflicting hermit and the music isn’t too far off this description.

Simply executed, no-frills black metal that will send you reeling. Riffs that will haunt your conscious mind. Songs are sometimes limited to one repeated riff, tempo and drum beat. The atmosphere is unforgiving with subtle hints of a black and roll, depressive black metal type. Highly recommend for anyone who has found solace and truth in the recordings of Akitsa. Aska treads the same path to great effect.

Necrofrost - In a Misty Soar and on its Swampy Floor / Bloodstorms Voktes over Hytrungha’s Dunkle Necrotroner / Blackeon Lightharvest

Necrofrost - In a Misty Soar and on its Swampy Floor

There is charm in the simplicity of a thing. Through a concept like Necrofrost’s minimalist black metal shines the enchanting ideals that made early Darkthrone so essential. Despite the generic name, copycat logo and abundance of corpse paint, Necrofrost‘s sound is a melodic romp through the misanthropy and hate that made the genre infamous. Heavily reminiscent of the daydreams that would come from intense rotations of orthodoxy, Necrofrost represent the absolute spirit of black metal. Murky feedback produces buried, hidden melodies that permeate the production mire on each release. Drums are kept simplistic and metronomic in style. Vocally, insanity rules supreme as high-pitched squeals meet grumbled murmurs to create a story like quality, dragging the tracks onward.

Equally at home in this niche of metal is a tongue-in-cheek approach to their music. Littered throughout the recording is a welcome sense of humour, from the devoutly stereotypical song titles (Carcass Carried By The Crawls Of Titanbats, Steel Forests Of My Deserted Dreams) to the intentionally amateurish layout. Everything about this feels right. Total Holocaust reissued both the band’s 2000 debut, In a Misty Soar and on its Swampy Floor, along with the second full-length from 2001, Bloodstorms Voktes over Hytrungha’s Dunkle Necrotroner, before showcasing a new recording, Blackeon Lightharvest, back in 2008. All are worthy of your time.

Bergraven - Dödsvisioner

Bergraven - Dödsvisioner

It would be unfair of me to lump Bergraven’s sound in with the depressive canon of black metal. This Swedish one-man outfit is more progressive and avant-garde than people give him credit for. It summons memories of Fleurety’s Mid Til Skall Komme and Ved Buens Ende’s distinctive guitar sound. Chances are this slipped under the scene’s radar because of its inability to be easily labeled, although immediate thoughts about the slow, doomy, death-obsessed nature of the recording inevitably bring to mind the more bearable moments of Shining’s music. This is not your immediately accessible, punch-in-the-face rendition of black metal.

Dödsvisioner is an unusual release because it fails to fall in to one of the smatterings of sub-sub-genres. The power lies in its ability to transcend these rather brash genre appellations and further itself as a progressive, highly introspective monument that focuses on adventurous tones and creative, avant-garde elements. The recording provides an otherworldly look into the psyche of a self-deprecating individual and succeeds on manifold levels to hit home. This does well to raise the bar in terms of one-man black metal bands and rivals acts like Heresi and Leviathan in terms of sheer scope. Recommended for anyone willing to spend some time immersing themselves in the psyche of another.

Logo that accompanies all releases since 2006.

For everything you hate.

Against everything you love.

Some unmentioned gems include anXpm, the resuscitated Ante Cryst, including Unknown Ikon of Emit. A brilliant collection of ambient obliteration that made the original Ante Cryst rehearsal so mesmerising. Slightly more outsider still is the free-rock fashionings of Svarti Loghin. Melody enriched arpeggios and sections of lead are met with keyboards and sun-kissed reveries. Completely unlike anything else in the Total Holocaust catalogue. Following the weird and bizarre comes Woods of Infinity. While some may be deterred by this band’s penchant for extreme outsider lyricism (paedophilia and rape are recurring themes), it is hard to deny the bizarre craft Woods of Infinity have been weaving during their 13 year existence. This, the band’s final EP, features two of their finest tracks. Recommended for lunatics and hermits alike.

Those seeking darker paths would be wise to invest some time in the Japanese band Arkha Sva. Raw and satanic black metal with more possession and anguish than most. If raw black metal sits well with you, then Vargr is likely to be right up your street as well. Conjures fond memories of Blazebirth Hall and the primitivism of the bestial canon. Falling deeper into the abyss of antediluvian fear is the band Kill. Despite the highly unimaginative name and cover art straight out of the 80s, the band manage to deliver a fairly engaging rendition of mid-paced blackened thrash metal.

Regardless of the path you seek, Total Holocaust records has already walked the line. The latter half of this label’s catalogue remains relatively unknown in underground circles, despite some unmissable gems. Rectify your mistakes. Support the warriors of the underground. Not the warriors of the internet!

 ENTER THE FORTRESS

Lvcifyre kick things off and it’s impossible to not find yourself digging their monolithic, subterranean tones. Last year’s The Calling Depths was a compelling work and demonstrated a maturity that belied the band’s relative lack of experience. In a live setting, the maddening, chaotic vibe of the record is translated extremely well. There’s a palpable thickness in the music that creates a very real sense of physical scale. Compulsory headbanging ensues and if there was any question of the younger band having to win over an unfamiliar audience, then it’s quickly and repeatedly shot down by a powerful display of superiority.

Grave Miasma are up next with their first London show since 2010. It’s a real shame, given the strength of the current UK death metal scene that gigs from this particular cult are so thin on the ground. On the other hand, it does give events like this a genuine sense of occasion. The band are faultless, delivering an astonishingly tight performance. Watching Grave Miasma is like being slowly intoxicated by some great, chthonic evil. All present are quickly ensnared within the tentacles of whatever primal, malefic sentience lurks behind, choked and blinded by the bunches of incense burning in buckets on either side of the stage.  “Magnificent” doesn’t do it justice. The experience is so consuming that the end of this particular rite is met with desperation for more and the sincere hope that it’s not another two years before Grave Miasma return to a London venue.

Foolishly, I’m sceptical that Deströyer 666 can top what has just happened, but within ten seconds of coming on stage they have won the day. The audience goes legitimately mental and there isn’t a stationary body in the room. There’s something admirable about a band that can maintain this level of ferocity for an entire set and as the night wears on there’s no let up in quality. Halfway through the set, the predictable highlight materialises as the familiar strains of the intro to ‘I Am the Wargod’ push everything up to 11. There’s something so righteous in heavy metal this pure and unadulterated. At some point or other, we’ve all had that moment where your stomach knotted and you found yourself spontaneously reacting to a song. This is exactly what Deströyer delivers relentlessly.

It was a great night for the London underground and one that will not be forgotten lightly by the 150 people in attendance. It’s rare to see three bands all operating at such a high level and this is upper-tier art from start to finish. It’s only when seeing acts of this quality that the dilution of the scene is laid bare. There are a number of bands playing far larger venues to far larger audiences who would have done well to come down tonight and learn a lesson in superior death metal craft.

“The thing about Amebix was that we weren’t trying to make the sound that later got labelled the Amebix sound or the crust punk sound. We were working with what we had at the time. And for people to go back and try to create that, you’re losing the whole point. You’ve already lost the artistic statement, that’s gone, BOOM, it’s disappeared in the smoke, it was done and it ain’t gonna be done again.” – Rob “The Baron” Miller

This is not an inside look at last year’s Sonic Mass, nor is it an inquiry about future tours and recordings. It’s simply a conversation between me – someone who really, really likes Amebix – and Rob “The Baron” Miller, a dude whose music has been an incredibly important part of my life. At this point, I think anyone who gives a shit knows the basics of the Amebix story, so I am not going to rehearse it here. In fact, I’m a bit concerned that in the few years since this band’s reunion, the discussion of their music has revolved around a pretty narrow set of talking points: “Punks playing metal”, “origins of crust punk”, “Venom and Black Sabbath”, “musically illiterate”, “apocalyptic darkness”, and so on, ad nauseam. While all these notions are accurate to some extent, together they form a one-dimensional image of Amebix, an image that reveals more about their profound influence on today’s extreme music than about the band itself.

Amebix were never just playing the music that would become crust punk and death metal. Unlike their successors, who have worked within the parameters of a very specific stylistic niche, Amebix truly belong to a long history of British electric guitar music, alongside everyone from The Fairport Convention to The Smiths to fucking Oasis. Listen for it – while their songs are the exact opposite of “rock n roll,” they also do everything a good rock n roll song does. Lyrically, Amebix were unlike anything in punk and metal before or since, and their mystical worldview has defiantly resisted reduction to any stock ideology. If anything, they fall into a tradition of British visionary literature that runs from the ancient epic poems through singular figures like John Milton, William Blake, Aleister Crowley, and David Tibet. My chief aim in this interview, aside from the simple satisfaction of my own curiosity, was to bring out the neglected aspects of Amebix’s work.

I spoke to Rob via Skype during the latter part of January, as he held out against the fearsome storms that batter the Isle of Skye each winter. I’ve pieced together the following from two lengthy conversations, and divided it thematically into four parts, which we will publish over the course of the coming weeks. Each can be read independently, but it helps to start at the beginning, because these will move into increasingly abstract territory.

******

In my past writing, I’ve emphasized how Amebix seem to be coming just as much from the post-punk or goth rock side of things as from metal or crust. And it seems to me, judging by the ‘Winter’ single and the like, that you guys were into Killing Joke and Joy Division before you were influenced by Venom and all that. So I’m wondering how you started getting into that stuff, and how you saw it in relation to punk.

You’re right about the early influences. Things like Killing Joke, Joy Division, Bauhaus – the darker-leaning post-punk – were really big influences, particularly in the Glebe in Devon. When you’re a kid and having your first drug experiences, getting your first bit of weed and sitting down to really listen to music, Killing Joke are great for that. It was this level of intensity I hadn’t found in anything else before. It blew my mind, really.

Joy Division were a staple. What Joy Division triggered for me was this very sombre depth, a sense of personal tragedy that came across in the music before all that actually happened with Ian Curtis. And I picked up on that – “this guy is talking about something very deep and very obscure.” Funnily enough, I was reading an early interview with Joy Division on The Quietus just last night, and Peter Hook made a statement about their lyrics similar to what I’ve said about my own. He said, “We don’t put lyrics in with our albums because we want people to work it out for themselves. And if they don’t work it out then that’s fine too, because what you hear yourself should be what you take away.” I remember that from bands back then. We didn’t have that proliferation of information where you could just grab hold of anything right here right now. You might get a fanzine that covered lyrics, but for the most part you’d have to work out what the fuck people were saying! And with Joy Division, these single lines would take me right into a very fucking deep and complex universe of ideas. Ian Curtis’s lyrical approach had a profound effect on me.

But it wasn’t just that. The bands that you grow up with, when you’re 10 or 11 years old, these are the most primary influences you have. And at that time I was listening to people like T-Rex and Procul Harum. Now, everyone knows ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, but Procul Harum did a couple of songs, one called ‘Homburg’ and another called ‘Conquistador’, and the lyrics on those songs have almost haunted me my entire life. If anybody wanted to look for a direct correlation between Amebix now and our influences, if they were to listen to ‘Homburg’ and then listen to ‘Knights of the Black Sun’, you would find some similarities there.

Yeah, my dad was always telling me that I would like Procol Harum! And I guess this has given me more incentive to check that out.

Yeah, I mean, they do this kind of lame prog shit for a lot of it, and this other stuff that has a totally eccentric Englishness, but they have moments where you think, “That’s absolute genius!” “Salty Dog” is another great song. That was on this album I bought when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I actually managed to track down vinyl of the other day. It’s called 20 Fantastic Original Hits, and it had Tyrannosaurus Rex, Joe Cocker, Procol Harum, The Move, and a couple other artists. And almost every single song on there is an absolute gem, and something that’s informed me later in life. Joe Cocker was one of the first people I heard with that gravelly voice, that dirtier approach… Do you know Joe Cocker at all?

I know…of him. He was northern soul or something, right?

Yeah, pretty much, but he also did a version of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, which is one of the few covers you can say is actually 100% better than the original.

I believe that. Oh wait, you know what? My dad showed me video of Joe Cocker at Woodstock, I think, where he was just twitching like a madman!

Yeah, he had the same sort of spastic energy as Ian Curtis actually! Exactly! That’s what ties those two together. He was just these uncontrolled limbs, writhing around and contorting on stage. Somebody that obviously felt the power of the music, and it informed him. And those are the people I really looked to and thought, “This isn’t just a charade, it’s not just someone being a fucking poser!” It’s somebody that is so demonically possessed by this thing, it’s so much a central part of their life that it is what they live and what they breathe. I really wanted to get into that space, and I love to try and approach that. I wouldn’t have the pretension to think that I do, but from time to time you get intimations of that.

Yes, I definitely know what you’re talking about!

As an addendum, I’ll add to that Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke, who obviously is such a fucking lunatic, but a profound lunatic.

A “holy fool”.

Exactly, the holy fool. You can take that through the Tarot and right on to the Arthurian legends as well.

So when Amebix was developing as a band, dark post-punk and “positive punk” were giving rise to Goth, proper. Did you remain interested in any of those bands? Did you get into Fields of the Nephilim?

Not so much them, but I liked The Sisters of Mercy. I liked the timbre of the singer, the controlled coolness of this voice over the very driven riffs. When we came to Bristol I came up with a bunch of cassettes I’d been recording off the John Peel show, which for me was the biggest possible influence you could get as a kid. I would sit at home in front of the radio with a little Woolworth’s cassette player and press record. These awful fucking cassettes were my treasures, and I arrived on the squat scene with that. I was playing a lot of obscure stuff, but also things like The Psychedelic Furs. I actually think it’d be fair to say they had an impact on us.

Interesting, they’re a pretty cool band! Would you say that the structures in the music sort of carried into your own?

No, because we didn’t understand music intellectually at all! Music is artifice, in a very pure sense. It is artificial, constructed. When you take away the main factor in that – the artist, who is there to construct something – or when the artist isn’t particularly aware of what he’s constructing, then you’ve got something altogether different. Unselfconsciously, what we were manifesting was something not by the rules, and not contrived. The other week I was watching the Norwegian black metal video, Until The Light Takes Us. Have you seen that?

I’ve seen bits and pieces. I’ve sort of avoided it, to be honest.

Well, I wanted to have more of an insight into that. At first I was very reactionary towards it, thinking “What are these fucking wankers doing, going and setting fire to churches?” I didn’t understand that there was something behind that beforehand, and that exactly the same thing that happened with the punk rock scene happened with their thing. It got taken over and intellectualized by people, and then it got parodied. Everyone tried to manufacture a product resembling something that, in itself, wasn’t that self-consciously produced. That’s what Amebix was. So I could see in the spirit of these guys what we were doing.

But one thing I didn’t agree with was that they looked to other bands, maybe in the UK, and did things like recording with a child’s mic from a fucking karaoke set, or something like that. It’s pretentious, really. The thing about Amebix was that we weren’t trying to make the sound that later got labelled the Amebix sound or the crust punk sound. We were working with what we had at the time. And for people to go back and try to create that, you’re losing the whole point. You’ve already lost the artistic statement, that’s gone, BOOM, it’s disappeared in the smoke, it was done and it ain’t gonna be done again.

You know that’s actually very close to something Varg Vikernes said about the original scene. He said something along the lines of, “People kept asking me what equipment I used to get my ‘raw sound,’ or whatever, but I wasn’t really trying to get a raw sound. I just wanted to make something visceral, something that came naturally to me, and something that wasn’t death metal.”

The good thing about that film, in particular, is that it has this other character in this artist [Bjarne Melgaard] who kind of hijacks the ideas and look of the movement and makes an art statement out of it. How fucking typical! These vultures come along, after something genuine’s been done. You’ve got a window of six months, if you’re lucky, before it gets hijacked and gradually drawn into the mainstream under the auspices of art. But it’s not! It’s just a lame-ass artist who didn’t come up with an idea himself, hoovering up the fresh ideas of the youth. And that’s what happened with punk rock, and that’s why the original span of the Pistols lasted less than a year.

Although our personal interests often force us to discuss releases by the more established cornerstones of the scene, from the very beginning LURKER’s fascination has always lain with those bands that do it for love, not glory or recognition; the ones that toil away in basements and shacks, thralls of DIY spirit, simply to create works of art they alone can be proud of. Perhaps unsurprisingly, musicians operating under the underground sometimes stumble across formulas alien to the world at large, and that’s when it gets particularly exciting. One such band thrust our way recently is Thyrkron, from Brazil, whose skewed, isolated interpretation of the black metal form makes it necessary to shed some light on them.

What makes this kind of music so empowering is that even fledgling bands can use it to express any range of lofty concepts and ideals that the artists may harbour. Black metal explicitly demands this, and Thyrkron deliver. Their self-recorded debut EP, Descendente Arcanjo Gabriel, tells the tale of the world’s rebirth through a strange allegory – God’s murder at the hands of Archangel Gabriel. Among other maddened ramblings, the correspondent stated: “We believe in an extremely anti-authoritarian/libertarian social system,” before hinting that Thyrkron’s next release would deal with the murder of human authority, rather than flagrant iconoclasm. They went on to reluctantly label themselves “eco-anarchists”.

So, with all these things in place, it is easy to start forming a preconception of how Thyrkron may sound. But any of these estimations, this lurker assures, will be way off the mark. Beneath the raw, flat recording and dishevelled delivery is a band bursting with passion that transcends their limitations. Across six untitled tracks, Descendente… blasts on at much the same rate throughout to discover many melodic twists and techniques generally absent from black metal on the way. The sloppy, broken twang of brutally strummed guitars not only betrays a sympathy to punk over the usual heavy metal overlords, but also makes vague nods to folk and the jaunty obscenity of Frenchmen Peste Noire – with all the eerie, gnarled guitar solos included.

The base production makes it a difficult record to listen to, yet the frenzied, haphazard assault is unique and charming enough to reward a discerning beholder. There are good songs here and even greater ideas, although they are at times marred by the EP’s inability to shift approach or vary the atmosphere between tracks. That said, Thyrkron are rampant with potential, and if they can capitalise on their intriguing beliefs by articulating them better within the music, then their follow-up release should make for an enchanting experience. But don’t take our word for it; download Descendente Arcanjo Gabriel at any of the locations below. Go forth and feast upon South American obscurity.

DOWNLOAD
BANDCAMP

“Before this recording, we kind of had this internal rule when going to the studio that we couldn’t record anything that we couldn’t reproduce live. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of our punk/DIY background, but we were never really into over-producing records, and always wanted everything to sound as raw as possible.”

Shortly before the official release of Omens in the United States via At A Loss Recordings, Monarch embarked on a long European tour in support of the album, which attracted well-deserved praise from those drawn to their overbearing, ritualistic aura. As I reviewed Omens, I kept dwelling on an enigmatic presence within the album, as something about it struck me as foreign compared to earlier material. References to witchcraft, which were only hinted at in the past, are now fully fledged, and while their music may be hit or miss for the run-of-the-mill metal enthusiast, it has earned them a faithful following obsessed with their piercing, moody riffs and occult aesthetics. So I decided I would ask them directly about those influences, hoping to reveal more about the nature of this album. As you’ll soon see, bassist MicHell Bidegain had a lot to say on the subject.

In the review I wrote a while ago, I highlighted the amount of visual motifs related to witchcraft present in this album and the two previous albums, and how they’ve become increasingly prominent with each new release. Is this identity something you intend to project as a band from now on, or would you consider this was something that was always present?

I’d say there’s definitely a ritualistic aspect to our music, in the sense that by the means of loud amplifiers we do try to conjure mass-death and destruction. Monarch has always been a 13bpm black mass.

What inspired you to adopt the imagery now present in the band? Any books or works of art in particular?

Visually speaking, as of late we’ve been heavily influenced by eerie 70s French underground cinema, mainly by the work of Jean Rollin. There’s just something strange, poetic and fascinating about his visual work that appeals to us, and we thought it could work in a heavy music setting. There’s constantly this foreboding sense of doom and gloom, but with a dreamlike quality that we try to convey. This type of cinema definitely also prompted a change in our sound, by working more on sound textures and narration in our “songs” to try to give them a more cinematographic dimension.

Omens is an atypical album in terms of production, as it was recorded in several locations at different times. Tell us about the process.

The actual result of the production process of Omens as a whole stemmed more from necessity than, say, a pondered decision. When writing and recording this album, the band members were living in four different countries on three different continents, so we couldn’t meet up every week for band practice. Our only option was basically to write and record while on tour. So we met up in Japan, and spent all of our time off from tour living in this club called Hokage in Osaka, owned by Shibata from Birushanah. We’d wake up, write/practice until bands came in for soundcheck, then we’d go out and hit the bars until the concert was over, get back to writing/practicing, sleep, and start over. It was intense but so great being a million miles from home in a city as cool as Osaka, totally submerged in the creative process. So we wrote the instrumentation in Japan, then recorded drums and percussions with Hironori Ochi in Kakurega studio in Osaka. We then recorded basic guitar and bass tracks a few weeks later with Neil Thomason in Melbourne at Headgap Studios while on tour in Australia. Emilie recorded part of her vocals with Matt Cartman at Crane Studio in Montréal, where she was living at the time. We then went to Chicago with Emilie to finish some guitar overdubs as well as vocals with Sanford Parker, and mixed the album at Engine Studios with him. All in all, I think it made for a very interesting experience, and have great memories of all of the steps involved in making this album.

I also noticed there’s a big line-up involved in this record, with people like Eric Quach from Thisquietarmy, Atsuchi Sano from Birushanah, and even Robert MacManus (former Grey Daturas member, of which I’m a big fan), among others. What was their involvement in this new album?

When writing the new album in Japan, we were on tour with Birushanah, which is this awesome heavy band with killer make-shift Japanese percussion. So we were working on this song, which would become ‘Blood Seeress’, and while brainstorming in a bar we had the idea to ask Sano, the percussionist from Birushanah, to play on our song. We asked him and he was totally up for the idea, so we worked on the song with him playing his crazy percussion over the track for a few days before recording our drums and his percussion. Robert Macmanus, who actually used to drum in the band, laid down some killer heavy distorted noise tracks on guitar while recording in Australia. Our friend Eric from Thisquietarmy was kind enough to write what would become the Transylvanian Incantations interlude for us, on which Yailen from Ensorcelor and Jeanne from The Sparteens did vocals for. Fun fact: no one from Monarch is actually on that track.

There’s a noticeable difference between Omens and your previous albums: a faster tempo, more background elements, a more diverse range of vocals… What prompted this musical evolution? Are you satisfied with the results?

Simply put, when we wrote and recorded this album, we all had a better idea of what direction we wanted to take. We obviously wanted to write a heavy, dark album and all had different ideas we wanted to incorporate into this album. Emilie, for example, had been working with an array of delay/reverb/echo pedals in a live setting, and wanted to work more of those noisy elements into the new material. Maybe in a sense when recording this album we were all a bit more mature sonically speaking, and were willing to be more open about production ideas. Before this recording, we kind of had this internal rule when going to the studio that we couldn’t record anything that we couldn’t reproduce live. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because of our punk/DIY background, but we were never really into over-producing records, and always wanted everything to sound as raw as possible. But I think on this recording we found a middle ground that works for us between the raw, dirty, crusty aspect of the band, and the more produced elements in the mix.

In terms of lyrics, would you say there’s an evolution in that department as well? From what I could interpret and compare between Die Tonight (my personal favorite) and Omens, it seems to me that Omens is way more vengeful and angered in tone, whereas Die Tonight felt anguished and tortured (perhaps aided by the fact that it had a slower tempo) but, nonetheless, I hear and feel something different in Omens. What is it that distinguishes this album from your previous releases, in this aspect?

Lyrically speaking, I think the difference between Omens and our previous albums is that with this album we wanted to use the vocals more like an active statement, something more along the lines of an invocation. On previous recordings, such as Die Tonight, the lyrics related tales of anguish and despair, with the protagonist being crushed and victimized. On Omens, on the other hand, the lyrics are more of a summoning, with the protagonist taking total control of the death and destruction surrounding her, basically creating blackened chaos.

How do you feel Omens has been received in the metal community so far?

Surprisingly, for the moment, the album has been received very well. But don’t get me wrong, we’ll always be one of those bands people like to hate.

How do you, as a band, perceive the issue of piracy in this decade? This year has been very controversial in that aspect, seeing as several direct download servers have been closed or limited, and new laws have surfaced under the sake of preventing piracy, which have been met with scorn from the users.

Honestly, I’m 100% for the free circulation of information, be it obscure black metal demos, suppressed government documents or the latest retarded blockbuster action movie. When it comes to music, at least with underground music, I like to think that if people really enjoy your output, they’ll buy a physical copy, or attend a show if the band is in town. It’s lame to see things in monetary terms, but these are the little things that help an active underground band to strive, because nobody is making money here, just having the means to be able to continue is already a success. I really don’t think that piracy is killing the world of music, at least not underground music, I just think that the musical landscape is changing. So many more people have access to your music, thanks to download servers and file-sharing sites. If you’re doing something worthwhile, I think this is a good thing, and this will all eventually balance itself out.

What has Monarch been listening to lately? Any favorite albums from 2011? Have any of these albums had an influence in Omens?

Personally, I’ve been listening to lot of The Body, Loss, Darkthrone as usual, Krallice, Asunder, Crebain, Wizards of Firetop Mountain, Wounded Kings, Nachtmystium, Paintbox, Dark Castle, Coffins, Leviathan, and Bathory lately. Oh, and NOFX. A lot. Really.

I’m also very interested in knowing about the band’s literary habits. Have you read anything worth mentioning lately?

Dave Mustaine’s autobiography. Genius. If not, I’ve been dabbling heavily in books about true crime. It’s become this weird morbid obsession I can’t really shake…

Anything you wish to add?

Listen to Wizards of Firetop Mountain.

Omens can be purchased on CD via At A Loss Recordings’ Blue Collar Distro page, and there’s an LP version coming out soon. For more information, visit Monarch’s Facebook page or check their Twitter account (@xMONARCHx).

“The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.”

What cosmic, tenebrous horrors lurk beneath the din of Al Azif! Black seas of infinity open up before us. A nefarious, ululating bleakness, a furrowing of the brow and an insanity fed by the horror of existence. No other can so confidently manipulate the aberrant fear and wonder that takes hold when I delve into the Necronomicon. In the same way I found myself helplessly at the mercy of Lovecraft’s short stories, incapable of tearing myself away – I find myself locked into a groove with Al Azif, a juggernaut of emotional might. Extreme music that pulls your heartstrings in all directions. The nature of this album leaves little time for reflection or self-introspection. What results is a brilliant piece of art that successfully holds the listener’s attention for the duration on both an emotional and personal level. The thematic idea of the unknown is conveyed successfully and the band prove worthy of the descriptor Lovecraftian.

The ideology behind Al Azif, the debut album from this five-piece French horde, draws from a deeper well of inspiration than the cyclopean song titles and non-Euclidean contours of cover art may imply. Part of the allure to a Lovecraft story is the idea of journeying into the unknown: uncovering forgotten truths and revealing pieces of eternity too great for the eye of man. Al Azif is the Leviathan of Ahab’s nightmares: a colossal shadow engulfing light and hope. Its true form is never revealed; we are left to ponder the disheveled, emotive remnants of the observer. Al Azif  is a grand narrative in the Lovecraftian vein, playing heavily on emotional responses while feeding fear. One amorphous, malevolent, unspeakable experience!

The style falls into the post-black metal camp, albeit injected with more potent venom. There are achingly beautiful walls of melody that reach nauseating crescendos, which are always reinforced with a more direct bloodline to the aggressive tendencies of orthodox black metal. Battering-ram drums seek to bolster the delicate affectations of post-rock. There are psychedelic reflections that summon memories of Clint Mansell soundtracks. Lead guitars glisten through thick, caverned layers of sound that constantly shift and change. Tremolo riffs give way to gruff, palm-muted moments of intense aggression. Experimental flourishes rise in abundance throughout (the unhinged jazzed-up lead towards the end of ‘Rue d’Auseil’).

This is black metal of a higher caliber. Where Portal succeed in conjuring the feel of the Old Gods with their spatio-temporally ambiguous slabs of dizzying death metal, The Great Old Ones actively relay the experiences of the observer. You are Francis Wayland Thurston stood before the threshold of the city of R’lyeh – and the music is affecting enough for me to believe this.

Not that this music should be appreciated solely in terms of its interest in Lovecraftian subject matter – for Al Azif is the album this LURKER has been waiting for. Equal parts aggressive and serene, The Great Old Ones manage to summon feelings of the sublime and majesty, terror and fear, as well as hate and belligerence. It would be lazy to lump these gentlemen in with popular acts like Altar of Plagues, Fen or even Wolves in the Throne Room. The Great Old Ones wear the ambient (or post-rock inferred) tag with relative disregard for how that translates in underground circles. Al Azif is a journey into the heart of darkness. Gripping, intense and ambitious – truths shall be revealed. The old ones shall rise. The band’s agenda is alien. Suggesting similarities in sound and context would be forced and untrue. What Al Azif  lacks has probably got more to do with the current philosophies floating around in underground circles. How the band approaches their music in general is most likely very different. There is no repetition, no rehashing of others’ ideas and, most importantly, a feeling of complete sincerity. How alien and unknown that has become in today’s musical climate!

US patrons of Saint Lovecraft should pre-order now from Antithetic Records.
European custodians can head over to Les acteurs de l’ombre Productions for pre-order.

God help us – for art is long, and life so short.

Written, recorded and completed in just one day, Laster’s Wijsgeer & Narreman is the brainchild of members from Northward and White Oak. The former, whose boundlessly imaginative take on black metal left this lurker spellbound, has bled over into Laster. The pagan feel of Drudkh is met with the driving, engaging atmosphere that made In Sturmes Wind totally compelling. The drummer from White Oak does a stellar job transporting his colossal performance on the band’s debut, Contouren van het Niets, to this project. What results is something truly unique: a recorded-in-a-day rendition of emotionally driven, layered and engaging black metal inspired by Goethe’s Faust.

This is a hugely refreshing voyage into the oft-indefinable construct of modern black metal. There is a wealth of influence which the listener can track throughout the EP. Laster have constructed a monumental sound that unabashedly borrows from those before without teetering over into stale repetition of themes. This comes across as timeless black metal, underpinned by an immediacy and pride lacking in today’s scene. The fact that this was conceived and recorded in one day alone is equally baffling and fitting. There is a tautness/linearity to sound that most bands strive toward and the spirit is high and potent. It is full of spontaneity and flow – the kind of atmosphere that is killed off by over-thinking compositionally and the kind of aura that Urfaust command at will (just look at Geist ist Teufel, which was recorded in one drunken night).

On foundations of tremolo riffs, banshee howls and a creativity unmarred rises a monument of driving, feeling-fueled black metal complete with proud references to all aspects of the genre’s tract. There is a weighted dedication to Eastern European black metal, particularly of Ukranian ilk, embraced in the guitars and bursts of double-bass drumming. One can even hear the icy hypnotism that drove Québécois black metal to such blissful heights in the extended sections of repetition. Album closer ‘Wijsgeer ende narreman’ reveals forays into those Ulver-esque acoustic passages found in Northward and marries them to the kind of riffs, drum fills and atmosphere prevalent in the quintessential depressive black metal band Make a Change… Kill Yourself. These stark, tremolo-based melodies consistently interplay with crescendos of Liturgy like clarity before bringing the EP to a heart-racing close.

Basically, the sum of influence on display is astounding. The cohesiveness of this release baffles me. The band is currently looking for a label to manifest a physical release. Interested parties should spin the EP below or on the Bandcamp page before contacting Laster here.

The constant hype train is the most tiresome aspect of music journalism. Every year, a handful of albums are widely hailed to be the best thing you’ve ever heard. And that’s fine. But after another few years, these records rarely possess the staying power that all the critics had suggested. They fade away into obscurity, all but forgotten, while the hordes of writers, blogs and publications desperately scrabble around for the next flavour of the week. In a bid to stem our frustration, LURKER will occasionally be forced to celebrate our favourite classic albums, records that have stood the test of time and will continue to do so. In the first of these columns, we launch into a defence of the occult mysteries lurking beneath Dissection’s much-maligned Reinkaos…

Fans of extreme metal are by nature prone to a certain world view, one that sets us apart from those who consume the product of other genres. Our tendency is towards the analytical. How many times have we debated, verbosely, the minutiae of a release? Thrashed out the issues over every note, lyric and movement of a record that is ostensibly about raping Christ and praising Satan? The question is rhetorical, but if it wasn’t the answer would be “too many!” Where does this desire to understand and interpret come from? Is it an inherent function of the music, or an inherent part of us as the extreme metal audience?

From my own position, I have always been fascinated by the occult for the same reasons that I’m fascinated with extreme music. The desire to understand something symbolic, to process, learn from and unlock the secret to something preternatural. As a black metal fan, I am most satisfied with output that has a natural affinity towards this world view, and that intersection between the musically intriguing and the metaphysically compelling has never been more apparent than on what I would defend aggressively as one of the best extreme metal releases of all time, Dissection’s much-maligned Reinkaos.

There’s no need to dwell on context, as everyone reading this publication will at least be aware of the Dissection narrative. I choose instead to focus on what makes this such a compelling record, and why it is well worth your time to revisit it.

The critique has always focused on why Reinkaos wasn’t a return to form, why it didn’t live up to expectations and why earlier material is so much better. This view fails to account for what made Dissection such a powerful force in the first place, and why Reinkaos is a distillation of this essence, not a dilution. My contention is that this argument approaches the album in the wrong way. Dissection was never about orthodoxy, after all they were one of the first to mix black and death metal in a distinct rebuttal to the genre tyranny of the early 90s scene. No, Dissection was all about philosophy. They were a channelling of something pure, sinister and genuine. Time has exposed the Satanic posturing of the Norwegian scene as nothing but farce, but for Dissection there was a legitimacy that would lead them to the only possible conclusion. If you want to talk about sincerity within black metal, then talk about Dissection.

The reality, then, is that as much as Reinkaos was a musical departure from previous work, it was the logical progression and indeed conclusion of the Dissection project, and stands alone as one of the most powerful works created under the extreme metal banner. Arguably, it is a transcendental work that, while using metal as a platform, goes far beyond being just another album. Instead it was a totemic work of art that anyone attuned to the energies that black metal claims to represent will feel a deep affinity for.

So why so much praise? First of all, let’s address the instrumental aspects of the work. No, the frozen tones and sinister riffs of the past are not present, but is what has replaced them any weaker? No. Guitars, drums and bass act in unison to create a legitimate power. There is a martial element to the record that serves to underline the theology at the core of this record. Far from lacking in riffs, what Nödtveidt has done is extrapolated this martial essence to create a unifying musicality, which is but one aspect of what raises Reinkaos above the norm.

From the opening strains of ‘Beyond the Horizon’ to the closing victory dance of ‘Maha Kali’, the instrumentation is evidence of a musician with a vision. Rather than focussing on a lack of “memorable” riffs, we should reflect on what makes the better artist – one who can create a handful of riffs that they can make the centrepiece of some otherwise unremarkable songs, or one who can recognise the need for restraint. Nödtveidt understands that theme, timbre, texture and cadence are the strength behind strong song-writing, not simply being able to deconstruct a chord.

That said, it is not the guitar, bass or drum work that defines this album. It has been said that Reinkaos is not simply an album, but a grimoire set to music. This is absolutely true, and why Reinkaos goes beyond the sum of its parts. The thematic context is Gnostic-Satanic theology, a belief system that would take multiple essays to explain. Suffice to say that the entire work is a dedication to the gods of the Left-hand Path, and a symbolic cipher that unlocks this complex spirituality. Simply put, Reinkaos is a legitimate work of magick. The lyrics are coded lessons, instructed in the same way as any great occult-philosophical author would transmit their wisdom. The numerous invocations included within various songs are more than just posturing, but necessary to cause fundamental change in the perception of the listener and open their minds to receive what is being offered.

Of course, one doesn’t have to absorb the record in this way, but my challenge then would be why bother with this genre at all? If we deny any level of inquisition, then what sets our niche apart from any other? The vast majority of music genres, even within metal in the broader sense, are replete with surface-level appeal. We like 4/4 beats and major-key harmonies because we are instinctively and biologically pre-programmed to do so. Reinkaos is a test, and one that should force anyone who claims to be into these genres to question what they’re here for. This is the real thing, genuine Satanic energies being invoked and transmitted through music. It’s easy to play at this, to wear the t-shirts and namecheck the necessary bands, but an album such as this confronts the unworthy with an uncomfortable question. Are you for real, and do you see beyond the surface, or is this just another form of entertainment to you?

Extreme metal isn’t about being a caricature. It doesn’t involve wearing corpse paint to gigs and changing your name to KriegsTrooper SvartFuck and the over-compensation that we see in our scene is typical of people who have, for want of a better analogy, bitten off more than they can chew.

We can’t spend our lives subsumed in darkness, and those who do so are mentally ill, not “more true”. As rational, rationalising fans of a genre which explores internal and extrenal darkness, however, we should be able to look into ourselves and analyse what we find with the same attention that we use to analyse the latest scene release. Whether this inner darkness is symbolic or part of some sinister extra-terrestrial force, Reinkaos stands alone as being the greatest representation of this that I have ever heard. It transcends metal and transcends music to become a genuine pathway towards understanding this microcosmic/macrocosmic duality. It stands alone, therefore, as the pinnacle of Dissection’s creativity, and when you understand its symbolism and what it has brought into the world, the legacy of Dissection will become clear.