Culminating a musical gaze cast through the lens of Ingmar Bergman’s Faith Trilogy, the odd, eccentric and relatively obscure Spider God take his 1963 film The Silence as the narrative viewpoint here. We first joined this chronicle in the 2nd part Skugglösa Ljuset / Shadowless Light and although not aware of many things including the Bergman connections at the time of writing found the raw black with melodic death overtones of this project mysterious yet compulsive listening, so damn catchy that once it had invaded your head was pretty much impossible to shift. The web here is unravelling slowly and more info is getting out there regarding the artist. Spider God is probably the work of one person in the main, situated in the SW of England. At the end of last year, a casting call for live musicians was sent out. It would seem this has been successful as they are set to play at the already sold-out London show with Lamp Of Murmuur next month. Somewhat more stupefying is the release of a debut album ‘Black Renditions’ at the beginning of 2022, breaking up the trilogy of EP’s and as the title suggests focussing on blackened cover versions of well-known songs. Looking at the track list and seeing The Pointer Sisters, Whitney, Brittney, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, S Club 7, Kanye and Bieber included is enough to send the head spinning and I am hardly surprised this wasn’t sent out for review. Those curious to take this particular plunge can find this on Bandcamp too.

I am using the English track titles for the 4 main songs here, no doubt it all makes more sense if you have seen the Bergman film but the lyrics are also helpfully in native tongue in the CD booklet too. After an intro sounding like Portishead with a DSBM voiceover, the misery spreads into first main song ‘Horrible Forces.’ Here we contemplate a tortured soul ruminating about not being left to die so far from home in a hotel room. The lyrics are full of anguish but hold on, the music is not. Those hooks are captivating, the pace is manic and has a certain sense of triumph about it and again there are underlying Oriental / Mandarin styled trappings to the melody. There’s something totally deranged about it all and despite the fact we are told life is slow suffocation and humiliation there’s a dichotomy as the song is actually somewhat life affirming and likely to leave you banging your head in glee. Is there also a Mission Impossible theme lurking in the very background too? One thing’s for sure it’s all kind of batshit crazy!

Galloping headlong into ‘Eclipsed By Blood’ it’s hard not to think of a film more in the vein of Kurosawa rather than the source such is the strumming geisha house strains of this frantic romp. This owes musically to battle and folk metal in ways and it takes me back to the glorious 1st discovery of Tengger Cavalry. The riff at the start of ‘Strangers And Tears’ sounds like it could even be a sped up version of a traditional folk song. Along with the barking vocals and hurdy-gurdy freneticism of this its guaranteed to sweep you off your feet as well as stick in your skull. It’s apparent on last unhinged romp ‘Embrace Despair’ that as far as guitar is concerned the player has no problem hitting the metal licks too as he does with zeal here. The mania is spread further by what sounds like a traditional flute parping in the background and yep you guessed it this is hardly a case of musical “despair” in the slightest.

There’s no two ways about it, this may absolutely confound the listener but it will suitably dazzle them too and its certainly somewhat unique as well as deliriously enjoyable. I’m currently steeling myself to listen to those covers whilst wondering what on earth is going to come next? With this trilogy of EP’s complete the future seems somewhat limitless and could be very bright for this arachnid creator.

(8/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/spidergodband

https://reposerecords.bandcamp.com/album/ett-fr-mmande-spr-k-a-foreign-tongue