Anyone fancy a blast of experimental, instrumental black metal which produces “a feeling, as if the mind of the listener, dragged into the music, were unable of concentrate itself or were experiencing a powerful hallucinogen effect”? Thought so. Having lurked around the fringes of the French scene for some time now, Spektr are devout proponents of the more twisted side of the black metal spectrum – harsh noise, discordance and disturbing soundscapes being the order of the day. In this, they are strongly aligned with countrymen such as Blut aus Nord, Way to End, Haemoth and the like, pushing somewhat at the fringes of ‘modern’ black metal.
So, no shoegazey, campfire, ‘post-forest’ stylings from this duo, just coal-black swathes of harsh scything violence interspersed with tomb-like passages of dark ambient. Spektr clearly intend ‘Cypher’ to be taken seriously, genuinely committed to something that they view as quite forward-thinking and deeply experimental. Except that it isn’t, really. For all the admirable intent, once one strips ‘Cypher’ back to its core constituents it really is just ‘another’ discordant, cold modern black metal record. Only without vocals. Spektr’s style of frozen, hissy, mechanical, minor-chord riffwork really was defined as far back as Thorns’ seminal debut over ten years ago – not only this, but the brief forays into black-hole dark ambient soundscapes also appeared there.
To put it succinctly, this really isn’t as ground-breaking as it seems to think it is.
The lack of vocals doesn’t help with this. Given that the tracks here are not screaming with innovation or are laced with mind-bending progressive structures, there is almost a sense of a band having written another album, sitting back and saying ‘you know what, let’s not bother with the vocals’. It’s hard to articulate it but Cypher feels like a normal album missing vocals, not an intentionally instrumental album – for me, this is a crucial point.
I don’t mean to be overly negative as by and large, this is am absorbing and atmospheric listen. The sense of being dragged into some sort of ragged, hallucinatory black-hole dimension is spot-on with some well-deployed samples in ‘Singularity’ proving particularly effective. The stuttering drum patterns and vicious chord changes of ‘Antimatter’ are also quite riveting, switching gears whilst sustaining an ambience of chilled malevolence. The jangling, 50s sounding chords that echo throughout the final part of the track are a nice touch too – but even this idea has been used previously by other acts (Aluk Todolo’s recent ‘Occult Rock’ is sprinkled with them).
It doesn’t really feel like enough if I’m honest. ‘Cypher’ promises big things and the opening spiel quoted above had me rubbing my hands together in anticipation for a really involving, mood-altering listen. To be confronted with album of competent modern ‘dissonant-esque’ vocal-free black metal was something of a let-down. With Deathspell Omega still leading this field, a harsh guitar sound, the odd darkwave interlude and flattening a load of fifths is no longer really enough to justify self-proclaimed statements of bleeding edginess. ‘Cypher’ is decent but no more and Spektr are at risk of failing to standing out from the modern black metal pack.
(6.5/10 Frank Allain)
https://soundcloud.com/agoniarecords/spektr-cypher-album-preview
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