Being more or less aware of Juhana Partanen's tenure with the magnificently eerie Aeoga, this foray into black/death territory sounded intriguing if not rather baffling. After a couple of listens, I've pretty much concluded that this mini-CD's acceptance is two-fold: on one hand you have people - most probably proud members of Shagrath's fandom - who will find this offering monolithic and laughably purposeless, and on the other, like-minded connoisseurs whose music collection could easily afford a nice, comfortable slot for this somewhere snugly between Nifelheim's early catalogue and Demoncy's first two spews of putrid bile. Well, apparently I'm leaning towards the second category. These odd 20 minutes of utterly uncompromising musical squalor has managed to strike a chord or two in this writer's battered cerebrum.
So what we have here is a musical platter comprised of four strangely addictive songs replete with an atavistic overtone both compositionally and aesthetically. It's an offering evidently conceived straight from the source, not some poor simulacrum of erstwhile originators of this particular niche. And yes, it could potentially be a demanding listen because of the requisite amount of perspicacity needed to fully take this black/death frenzy in its entirety. I mean, take the guitar's tar-doused timbre for instance or the frantic abandon the percussion is seemingly left in; this is serious business, ladies and gents. To wrap it up, this release in itself is an ugly concoction of rancid, pernicious music - approachable for the few, listenable for the even fewer; within a broader, necrotically inclined black/death metal context it's right down there with Archgoat, Blasphemy and other regulars of the abyssal realms. Good stuff....
So what we have here is a musical platter comprised of four strangely addictive songs replete with an atavistic overtone both compositionally and aesthetically. It's an offering evidently conceived straight from the source, not some poor simulacrum of erstwhile originators of this particular niche. And yes, it could potentially be a demanding listen because of the requisite amount of perspicacity needed to fully take this black/death frenzy in its entirety. I mean, take the guitar's tar-doused timbre for instance or the frantic abandon the percussion is seemingly left in; this is serious business, ladies and gents. To wrap it up, this release in itself is an ugly concoction of rancid, pernicious music - approachable for the few, listenable for the even fewer; within a broader, necrotically inclined black/death metal context it's right down there with Archgoat, Blasphemy and other regulars of the abyssal realms. Good stuff....
(originally written for Tartarean Desire - 15/3/2008)
No comments:
Post a Comment