I reviewed Abbey ov Thelema’s 2011 album “A Fragment ov the Great Work”, and questioned whether it was a case of genius or insanity. By way of preparation for this promo, which itself is intended to precede a conceptual album, I listened to “A Fragment ov the Great Work” and wondered once more at the structureless and atmospheric black metal and much more. The Slovakian duo is now a Slovakian-Polish duo. I was intrigued to find out where the creative process has taken them to now.
Oh, my goodness. I need to get my head round this. Cosmic anarchy rules. Keyboards, manic guitars, screams and moans all head off in different, shadowy directions and at different speeds. It’s manic. It’s another musical representation of nightmares. It’s not meant to be clear and it isn’t. What I find most disturbing in all this chaos is a sort of orchestral sound swirling in the background which makes the lunacy still more lunatic and nightmarish.
It’s right that it’s just one three part twenty minute track “MMXII – Here and Now: At the Threshold ov End Times” because you can’t separate this. It’s just mental erosion devoted to Body Mind, and Soul. As, to give its full and splendid title, “The Body – The Many Who Became One, Yet Refused to Dissolve into None” comes to a close, there is sinister calm of an industrial kind, then the disharmonious sparks fly once more. I sense the anarchic progressiveness of Ephel Duath. The progression is slow. See-sawing sounds, crashing drums and a constant journey in and out of the subconscious are back on the menu. The croaking black metal vocals add to the aura of horror. The piano and violin combine melancholically but not in any regular fashion. It’s not orchestral as anyone would normally understand it. I think we can safely regard this as “experimental”. The sound distortions require a stiff upper lip as this stuff of ghastly soundtrack messes with our psyche. I hear horrible cries in the background. Loosely there’s a Cradle-of-Filthiness about this only loosely, just as the distorted world of Anaal Nathrakh can faintly be felt. The lyrics are intense. Egyptian priests, Nietzsche and large doses of nihilism feature. They are spat out in deathly fashion with blood sauce. All the time there’s a cacophonous metal orchestra with sounds from a reality that I’m glad not to be part of. But it goes somewhere or I think it does, as I hear the musical equivalent walls crashing down as the screaming man and the accompanying dreadful sounds of hell continue relentlessly. The mixture of awful sounds remains to the end. What else could it be but the “Prelude to Apocalypse”? The indistinct humming at the end sounds like aeroplanes flying overhead in readiness for the attack on anyone listening, or perhaps it’s the just sounds rising from the depths through the mists.
Be prepared for a mental assault. The formlessness and conflicting musical scores are what this is all about. There’s commendably no concession to reality or any black metal gimmickry like church bells or anything like that. In fact, it’s so far from reality as we know it that it would have been even more disorientating if Abbey ov Thelema had suddenly included something recognisable. “Prelude to Apocalypse” is from an alien and unpleasant world. For what it’s worth, the band describe this music as “Transcendental Khaoblack Metal”. In deciding what I think, I have the same dilemma as before. On one level, it’s complete cacophony, on another it’s creative genius. Whatever its classification or my own impression of it, I warn you that mental fortitude is required. I look forward to the next instalment from this extreme and alternative band.
(7.5 / 10 Andrew Doherty)
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