It may have taken a decade or so but once you gained kvlt points for being able to pronounce and spell the name Dødheimsgard, don’t tell me you didn’t feel just a little bit smug? It’s back to the drawing board, or the copy and paste one now though with Doedsmaghird which sounds similar in a swallowing your dentures kind of way and as yet has not been conveniently abbreviated like DHG. Anyway, enough of that and we had been forewarned of this with a track appearing on Peaceville compilation album ‘Dark Side Of The Sacred Star’ back in 2022. It’s up to you how you approach Doedsmaghird but it is probably best described as a parallel entity or a side-step from the main band. Founding member Yusaf Parvez Vicotnik has taken over the reins here and although he is ably assisted by guitarist Camille Giradeau it is his mania and “consciousness” that we really must confront here. The seemingly intelligent and humorous (if social media posts are anything to go on) composer’s mind is a very strange one but this is something we have already deduced via his illustrious career in the likes of DHG, Ved Buens Ende, Strid, Code & Dold Vorde Ens Navn (to name but a few). Phrases like “forward thinking” and “ahead of their time” can easily be applied to his band’s work and that is very much the case here too. Dropping into universal awareness and tying together interdimensional timelines was never going to be an easy task and would be a challenge enough for even the hardiest explorer but into the void we go…

Actually compared to the sprawling ‘Black Medium Current’ the more accessible run-time here helps and it did not take long to scratch the surface of this. The tracks strike as combination of previous works and as we engage with ‘The Heart Of Hell’ and take on the album as a black (w)hole en-mass it all starts to make a bit of sense. There are plenty of sonic contusions of sound clamouring away with chaos at their heart, we quickly get an embellishment of electronic spacey beeps and pulses with the vocals gabbling and rasping over the top. The frantic industrialised contusions take back to the early era of DHG and the harmonious croons floating over the top more recent works. There are moments of serious deja-vu present and half the fun here is these firing off in your head and providing moments of lucidity and familiarity. Confusion and psychotic behaviour is found in dissonant and shrill clamouring passages such as on ‘Sparker Inn Apne Dorer.’ It really does strike as the sound of attempting to kick in open doors and with them all unlocked there’s nothing to prevent all manner of things escaping here. One can’t help but worry about the windmills in Vicotnik’s mind and just what goes through it on the seething maelstrom of ‘Then, to Darkness Return’ which matches the savagery of past monumental possessions and then some.

There’s some great sounds such as errant video-game sounding ping-pong balls bouncing on ‘Endless Distance’ and a zealous snake-charming, frantic kazoo clamour to ‘Adrift into Collapse’ (other descriptions are available) and on the whole this is a delightful smorgasbord of lunacy. Thankfully tranquillity does occasionally overlap as on short mid-point number ‘Endeavour’ and closing ‘Requiem Transiens’ via classical piano sonata suggesting that maybe a chill-pill has been introduced to the psychotic system but a state of flux and turmoil is never far away. In a world gone mad, listening to this is akin to sitting on the edge of your seat and watching it all unravel in front of you at some points it is also like a dissolving dreamscape where reality and fantasy become meshed as the universe tears itself apart.

‘Omniverse Consciousness’ is an album that is going to make little sense to many and it’s probably only its innovator that can interpret it properly but why should he? The delirious nature and what it transposes into the listener’s own head is the main adventure here for those willing to undertake it and multiple listens will have you discovering more each time you buckle up for the ride. No matter how you approach this, reality will never be quite the same again!

(9/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/DODHEIMSGARD

https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/omniverse-consciousness