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Deathspell Omega: Veritas diaboli manet in aeternum - Chaining the Katechon

23/02/09 || Khlysty

During the last few years, there’s been quite a buzz surrounding Deathspell Omega (heretoforth to be called DsO in this review), and not without reason: this French outfit (I’m very reluctant to call them a “band”) has spewed forth some of the most energetic, hate-filled and, also, thought-provoking and progressive (not as Dream Theater, you nimrods; anyway, Dream Theater are NOT progressive, but that’s another story…) black metal ever. The members of this, ehm, commune remain in anonymity, their interviews are scarce but very revealing about their philosophy and approach towards black metal, there’s no certain number of individuals performing the music, no concerts, no photos… you get the picture. This could be easily considered as a marketing trick, but it’s not: see, those bastards create exceptional music, are totally in control of their instruments and their lyrics are not the usual “hate Christ, hate Christians, hate everyone” fodder of black metal.

DsO strated humbly, following the steps of their Nordic black metal forefathers. But suddenly, these guys threw a curveball that caught black metal aficionados completely unawares: the thing started in 2004 with their “Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice” LP, a record that was a true Revelation (pun intended) to the generally stagnant black metal scene: on top of the usual blastbeat-ridden, tremolo-picked, screeched vocals template, DsO added dissonance, choral passages from Christian hymns, loops, noise, samples, improbable key and time-signature changes and dynamics to create an impossible-to-gauge sonic depth. But, all this was only the background, upon which DsO laid a blasphemous philosophy about God, Satan and Man’s position between those two driving forces. To do so, the lyricist(s) used ideas from the Roman Catholic Church holy texts, humanism, atheism and George Bataille’s theories and propositions, to present a (sickly, yes, and ugly and halfway misanthropic) philosophical stance so far removed from the usual faux-Satanist bullshit of black metal, as to mock, not only Christianity, but also their verbalistic peers.

The trend continued with the 2005 “Kénôse” (a Greek word meaning “voiding”, “emptiness”, which has a theological aspect), an E.P. containing three unnamed tracks, with more experimentation on sound and texture, and peaked with the third part of the “trilogy”, the great “Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum”, which saw the band moving toward bipolar extremes in sound (from dark ambient passages to almost amorphous blastathons), but also presented a more integrated music-lyrics-performance whole (as a side-thought, DsO is extremely user-unfriendly to downloading their works, since their CDs contain whole booklets of lyrics, or, better, texts that are sung-screeched-growled within the context of the songs, without which you’re left with half of the experience missing…). I think that “Fas…” was a culmination of sorts, an amalgamation of the sounds and thoughts displayed in the previous records, but I’ve heard some gripes about “unfocused songwriting”, “style over matter” and some such shit. I disagree, but, hey, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, however shitty they might be.

Well, for the naysayers, here comes “Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum – Chaining the Katechon”, a 22-minute E.P. containing one track, that’s gonna blow their minds, tear them a couple of new ones and, hopefully, propel DsO to more exposure. Because this time the fuckers did it. They composed a fucking black metal suite, that contains at least four different but totally interconnected (thematically and musically) parts, one important and complex piece of music that upgrades black metal into a whole other class of magnitude. Soundwise, in this monster DsO sometimes sound like “MoRT”-era Blut Aus Nord on steroids (taking the mid-tempo dissonance and speeding it to Hell and back), sometimes they go all melodical and brooding (during a part they add a fucking horn-sounding synth line…), sometimes they just blast their way (the fucking drummer MUST be a robot, such is his power, dexterity and precision), sometimes they slow down and then they blast again… and the whole is infinitely greater than its parts. The production in phenomenal: raw as a wound, but with a fully developed sound for every instrument and even hints of space, while the lyrical content refers to St. Paul’s eschatology and the advent of Antichrist, in a way that’s at the same time blasphemous, thought-provoking and poetic in a most ugly manner.

The vocals are the usual, very effective DsO raspy screech-growl, spewing forth venom and hatred towards the Katechon (also greek, meaning the one who has) who must be chained, so that the Son of Perdition might rise, signalling the coming of the final showdown (y’know, Armaggeddon and stuff…). But, even if the subject matter won’t tickle you enough, the music is so fuckin’ compelling that it will engulf you into its miasmic greatness. If you like black metal, this thing’ll kill you. If don’t like black metal, maybe DsO will change your mind. If they don’t… fuck, man, what are you doing here? “Hosanna”, indeed…

9,5 unholy invocations to the Son of Perdition out of 10.

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Norma Evangelium Diavoli
Website: www.deathspellomega.com
Band
No certain or conclusive information about DSO’s members available

Tracklist
01. Chaining the Katechon

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