Peripheral universe – 90%
gasmask_colostomy, October 15th, 2021
Select the phrase below that best summarizes your opinion about black metal:
A. Black metal represents a trip to the dark centre of the self and any successful band will thus end up in that same centre.
B. Black metal represents a trip to the furthest reaches of existence and all successful bands will thus end up at completely different locations.
Divine from those choices all you like about orthodoxy and ingenuity, but make sure to bear them in mind when learning that Blackdeath’s tenth full-length studio effort is comprised of only 2 songs, contains a “play” written in the Russian trio’s non-native German, and includes an acapella section termed a “choral fantasia” by the band. Although a large part of Blackdeath’s sonority and attitude remains easily identifiable to even the most insular black metal listeners, the means by which the music on Also sprach das Chaos progresses will fling many fans of the Norwegian ‘90s straight out of their spiked wooden thrones. However, another consideration as we fly oddly into orbit away from the central black hole: Blackdeath fiendishly manipulate the notions of centre and periphery throughout these 34 minutes, both musically and thematically.
For one thing, Colonel Para Bellum (bass/vocals), Abysslooker (guitar), and Polar Maya (drums) begin the album at the end in terms of narrative sequence. ‘Paralysiertes Äquinoktium’ describes the collapse of the Cosmos and its choral coda ‘Мир рухнул’ translates as ‘The World Has Collapsed’, bringing us to the middle of the album where the endless sequence of rebirths end and Ouroboros’s ring is broken. Nevertheless, ‘Im Labyrinth’ then arrives to narrate the story of the Dead one who wanders through the labyrinthine laws of the Cosmos and performs the initiation rite to become liberated from the Cosmos and return to primordial Chaos…which has already been related in the first song. The looping strands of end and beginning twine rather like Ouroboros too, with ‘Paralysiertes Äquinoktium / Мир рухнул’ opening in shocking full flow, while the echoing emptiness in the centre of the album acts only as a passage to the initial disharmonies that commence ‘Im Labyrinth’. Thus, in broad perspective Also sprach das Chaos feels like immersion in a musical Möbius strip.
Conceptually, Blackdeath’s brand bristles with the symbolic studs of Anti-Cosmic ideology, yet the density of the lyrics and imagery are presented as vivid and dramatic enough for the layman to understand, while emotionally resonating for the archetypal anti-Christian black metaller. Perhaps due to the extreme length of these songs (nearly 15 minutes for the opener and close to 20 for its sibling), the album feels massively dense and relentless, particularly after ‘Мир рухнул’ has created a few minutes of space in an otherwise claustrophobic mix of drilling strings, occasionally chaotic keyboards (provided, as on the last album, by Thomas Tannenberger of Abigor), and a bombardment of drumming. All the same, certain features jump out with surprising regularity, whether the emphasized tremolo lines that recur midway through ‘Paralysiertes Äquinoktium’, the bedraggled rhythmic stomp and crushing brass overdubs as ‘Im Labyrinth’ begins to ignite, or the unhinged diversity shown in the vocals, such as the bug-eyed wolf howl suddenly rearing out of a low snarled line 2 minutes into the closer. The only extreme divergence from black metal occurs with ‘Мир рухнул’, yet even there the texturing of voices swirls the mood through an enormous void between desolation and nostalgia.
If a single element can be pinpointed that transforms Also sprach das Chaos from exciting black metal adventure to truly daring extremity, then the vocals make that difference. Rather than the distant shriek of some genre staples, Colonel Para Bellum uses his voice confrontationally in manifold ways, even slightly beating the other instruments to the moment that ‘Paralysiertes Äquinoktium’ rips the album open and then remaining at the forefront of most movements thereafter. The intensity of some of his pivotal interjections gains something from the savagery that can be achieved when snarling and choking out the German language, and the energy expended sounds truly exhausting. What’s more, the focus on vocals – and particularly on voices plural, both in Para Bellum’s many tones and the mingling chants of ‘Мир рухнул’ – resists the concluding fixation on the self of much Satanic black metal and speaks instead of a multiplicity and separation that more properly matches the primordial Chaos spoken of in the album’s narrative. Precisely because of this fitting ingenuity – a kind of centred expansion, perhaps – Also sprach das Chaos can be seen as a deliberately profound and attentive presentation of Blackdeath’s core style and beliefs.
Originally written for The Metal Observer – http://www.metal-observer.com/3.o/review/blackdeath-also-sprach-das-chaos/
rafazardly 