“The first installment of a groundbreaking trilogy” (to be completed by the end of 2011): a proclamation that will make a few people orgasm, given the fact that it is referred to the newest chapter in the Blut Aus Nord codex: certainly one of the few marketing statements to be trusted almost blindly. BaN not only are synonymous of insanely good quality AGM but they are one of the few uncompromising artists who, in spite of their awe-inspiring prolificacy, do not wish to lie on their laurels but keep pushing themselves and some. Their avant-gardeness is as pure as it gets: it is visionary, lucid, fearless, tortured and sublime, as we expect the most profound of human journeys through the path of Art to be. Imitated and venerated, they still are quintessentially and tenaciously underground and that is the cherry on the cake for me. A toxic concentrate of contorted psychedelia, colder-than-machine black metal, cascading dissonant riffage and a refulgent profusion of organically hypnotic moments, this new album is once again a splendid example of BaN’s skill and wisdom, freedom of expression and unrivalled talent, a rare combination which stimulates the listener’s mind through a surreal journey full of symbolism and dread.
Since, once again, no lyrics are made known, here is an account of my personal voyage.
The soul-crushing start of “Epitome 01” smashes through the ether like a ferocious, mechanical blizzard led by some alien Demiurge set to slate-clean the deluded minds of humanity in one blow. Yet the human intellect is so encrusted in false myths and beliefs that the Demiurge has to take a step back in order to study its subjects. The epilogue of the track slows down and we see the all-reaching arms of the entity, bearing the 777 sign on its 3rd eye, illuminate the earth with beams of cold, milky light.
The pace remains slow but becomes breathtakingly majestic in the masterpiece track of the album, “Epitome 02”, where I see the Demiurge expanding into a thick wave of viscous ectoplasm and gradually beginning to envelope the world: this is the same kind of aura (albeit more melodic) that BaN showed us in those new “The Fall: Chapter 7” pieces which are part of “The Mystical Beast of Rebellion” reissue, a chilling and hopeless instrumental nightmare that neon-glows with decadence and hypnotic doom. Spectacular!
In “Epitome 03” the mood plunges underneath the miasmic folds of the putrefying human web: horrid screams of insanity reach the four corners of the globe in a moment of collective confusion, before sinking into the Demiurge’s cosmic glue.
“Epitome 04” bounces like a transparent juggernaut bubble of glutinous consistency inside which living beings and corpses alike, having fallen pray of new laws of gravity, float, spin and shake violently under the severe, emotionless glance of the Demiurge. Its 3rd eye now glows intermittently resembling 777 eclipsed suns which reverb flashes like a macabre, hypnotic dance.
“Epitome 05” begins a new eon-day with wrath and chaos plummeting once again from within the bleak depths of man’s subconscious into a mirror-reality: as we wonder if we are dead or alive, awake or subjected to a horrific nightmare, we are left with the heavy debris of an eternally lingering doubt. So new religions arise, new sects proliferate and fight each other once again, each of them carrying the bloodied effigies of symbols which will be never understood.
“Epitome 06” surfaces from a maddened collective conscience like a lost memory of something too painful to remember, echoing the tribal heartbeat of a cyclical cosmic voyage that is spinning one more time.
Await for the Demiurge’s comeback!
-Mystery Flame
VITALS:
Release: April 2011
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Avantgenre: The 777th Realm Of AGMness
Duration: 45:26
Origin: France
Official site: None
Review online since: 18.04.2011 / 16:40:05
| TRACKLIST:
01 – Epitome 01 |
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