...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI


..::OPIS::..

Ostatnia jak dotąd rewolucja w muzyce blackmetalowej miała miejsce… we Francji, a wspomógł ją pewien Fin, który dołączając do grupki cholernie uzdolnionych instrumentalistów, przyniósł ze sobą głęboko przemyślaną warstwę ideologiczną.

Brzmi dziwnie? A jakże, w końcu mowa o Deathspell Omega, najlepszym i najbardziej awangardowym zespole blackmetalowym ostatnich lat. Właśnie ukazała się jego najnowsza, doskonała płyta "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum".

Początki Deathspell Omega wcale nie zapowiadały tego, że grupa wywróci gatunek do góry nogami - dwa pierwsze albumy Francuzów były bardzo udaną, ale jednak tylko kopią najważniejszych dokonań Darkthrone. Dopiero na trzecim, a jednocześnie pierwszym nagranym z udziałem fińskiego wokalisty Mikko Aspy (m.in. Clandestine Blaze, Stabat Mater), "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", do głosu doszły wizjonerskie zapędy muzyków - psychodelia, chorały gregoriańskie i metrum przywodzące na myśl najciekawsze krążki mathcorowe. Leśny klimat zostawili umalowanym prymitywom, zdolnym zacytować tylko najbardziej znane frazy z Nietzschego i bezczelnie zrzynającym z Celtic Frost.

"Fas…" rządzi pokręcona rytmika, której nie powstydziliby się Converge, ani The Dillinger Escape Plan. Porównania są jak najbardziej na miejscu, bo pomimo różnic gatunkowych, Deathspell Omega buduje swoje riffy na bardzo podobnej bazie. Muzycy nie boją się też interpretować na własny sposób okołojazzowe patenty, a robią to na tyle charakterystycznie, że nie sposób ich pomylić z nikim innym. Kolejnym istotnym elementem wyróżniającym Francuzów wśród innych blackmetalowców są bardzo częste zmiany nastroju - od ciszy, przez niemal doommetalowe, pogrzebowe tempa, aż po psychopatyczną, pełną perkusyjnych blastów jazdę. To czyste dźwiękowe szaleństwo, którym rządzą reguły niezrozumiałe dla przeciętnych zjadaczy chleba. To samo tyczy się warstwy tekstowej - "Fas…" to druga część trylogii opisującej na poziomie teologicznym relacje między Bogiem, Szatanem i człowiekiem. Bez odpowiedniego przygotowania można zapomnieć o zgłębianiu tekstów.

Deathspell Omega pokazała, że black metal to coś więcej niż tylko szczeniackie wybryki skandynawskich nastolatków okraszone marnej jakości muzyką, a dzięki takim płytom, jak "Fas…" okazuje się, że w tym niemłodym już gatunku wciąż jest miejsce na eksperymenty dźwiękowe. Chwała im za to.

Maciej Stankiewicz


Trzy lata kazał czekać Deathspell Omega na swój kolejny, czwarty już album. Chyba ten okres wyszedł zespołowi na dobre, gdyż zawartość "Fas-Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum" bardzo pozytywnie zaskakuje.
Od strony muzycznej, jest to naturalny krok naprzód w stosunku do poprzedniej płyty. Formacja jeszcze odważniej sięgnęła po bardziej ambientowe dźwięki, przez co muzyka jeszcze bardziej kojarzy się z ostatnimi dokonaniami Blut Aus Nord, ale z przeciwnieństwie do swoich rodaków pozostał w tej muzyce dużo pierwiastek agresywnego grania. Da się zauważyć, że muzycy umiejętniej różnicują tempo i dozują emocje - teraz momenty agresywne brzmią agresywnie, spokojne, brzmią spokojnie, a muzyka nie zlewa się w jeden szybki blackowy kocioł. Kolejną rzeczą, która cieszy jest "tylko" 46 minut muzyki zamknięte w 6 utworach, z których 2 są powyżej 10 minut, a 2 nieco poniżej. Pomimo tak długich utworów nie nazwałbym tego jeszcze progresywnym graniem, gdyż mimo wszystko ta muzyka jest bardzo mocno osadzona w black metalu i niestety jeszcze mzuycy nie potrafią ze swoich ambientowych elementów wykreowac takiego nastroju jak robi to właśnie Blut Aus Nord.

Deathspell Omega nagrał naprawdę dobry album, ale mimo wszystko to jest jeszcze druga liga gatunku, a zespół jest zawsze o krok lub dwa za pionierami, którzy przecierają nowe szlaki w gatunku. Nie można jednak odmówić formacji zapału i konsekwencji - dostaliśmy naprawdę solidny i dobrze zagrany materiał, w którym jednak za mało jest tego czegoś, co zespół powinien dać od siebie.

Harlequin


It's not so easy to describe how the mysterious French project Deathspell Omega pushed the black metal genre to its ultimate borders, and even beyond, in a territory never explored before and still unmatched by others. It's true that, following the widespread trend of black metal, in the early 2000s, the band started as a homage to the Darkthrone's fashion-like style, thus resulting in an effective and excellent reinterpretation of Norwegian black metal in its rawest form. However, at a certain point, in 2004, Deathspell Omega dared to put their personal signature to the genre with their third effort "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice": a ritualistic, ceremonial-like sound, deep and dense in its low-end frequencies’ emphasis, and with a completely different approach to the lyrical content. No more blasphemous statements or provoking Devil worship for the sake of being anti-social, but an orthodox, theistic and philosophical dissertation around the obscure matter.

All the previous typical black metal cliché appeared, retrospectively, a little bit childish and superficial: everything suddenly entered a way more serious and rigorous, interesting treatment. Retaining a feral and violent musical vehemence, this French act also introduced technical proficiency and exquisite musicianship in their proposal and in the whole genre: no more minimalistic melodies with a basic octave-based harmonic context, but a sophisticated taste for challenging interval juxtapositions, with a particular focus on dissonance. Courageous diminished 5th and 2nd intervals, along with 7th chord shapes were injected in their phrasings, even daring to put unpleasant harmonies on strong, down-beat accents. The sense of discomfort and distress was never so evident and palpable in a black metal environment.

Great musicianship and amazing compositional skills are no more features of, let's say, jazz-infused technical death metal, or progressive metal: they are now a consistent part of this new kind of black metal. Micro-labelling started to spread uncontrolled: religious, orthodox, avant-garde progressive dissonant black metal? By my point of view, it's still, basically speaking, black metal, maybe of a "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" or "Wolf's Lair Abyss" quality and breed, but developed in an extremely articulated manner. And then, "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum" was released, in 2007: only 4, long, progressive suite-like compositions that brought the style of the band at its peak. There are no more unresolved melodic phrases, as there's no melody left at all. Black metal, in its purest form, not the symphonic variation, was deliberately broken in thousands sharp slivers and then all is scattered all around, like in an explosion.

The soundscape of chaos, the symphony of the fall of the light-bearer, the supreme and sublime dissonance against all order and harmony: if this is still black metal, it's the thing in itself. No need for labels, just BLACK METAL, in capital letters. There's no room for harmonic resolution, and there's no time to breathe through impossible blast-beats, performed even in odd-time signatures. When the storming rhythmic and disharmonic assault takes a stop, then a gloomy, obscure and menacing atmosphere permeates the sonic space, even with a dense, disturbing almost silent sections. This is black metal art! This is the most violent and upsetting music you can imagine, and it's all here, in a 46 minutes long masterpiece. Perfection at its highest peak, and then, from that height, a frenzied downfall.

VergerusTheSargonian



It's just not enough to say that Deathspell Omega's fourth commercially released full-length is great, nor is it enough to say it's a masterpiece of black metal. To borrow from the band themselves a song off of their Drought EP, this album is an abrasive swirling musk of unsettling corporeal madness. It's unapproachable. It's complex beyond any measure of complexity. It's impossibly fast. It's philosophical. It's boundary testing, patience testing, sanity testing, sense testing - it's unwelcoming and unpleasant.

And I love every second of it.

Going into this record directly after the fantastic, but flawed Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice, I didn't know what to expect other than a continued pummeling of my very lofty expectations upon closing out the first part of what I called "The Unholy Trilogy." While Si Monvmentvm... had fantastically gratuitous moments in overwhelming abundance ("Sola Fide I" and "Carnal Malefactor," anyone?), it did have its fair share of filler tracks that could be skipped or removed altogether. But at the same time, I believed that omitting any of the songs would've thrown a wrench in the gears of the message DsO was pushing, which was clothed in dark Theistic Satanist robes. An omission would serve as a compromise to Deathspell's philosophy, so they had to keep every song they had written and composed, even at the risk of having an overly long and bloated album. So in the end, I'm just being kinda selfish.

2007 is when Deathspell Omega hit their creative zenith with this album. According to the band, this marks the second part of their Unholy Trilogy, which, when all three albums were put together, would serve to be a "theological dispute on the divine essence of the Devil, the roles and virtues of faith and the place of man therein."

What this album does is answer the question if there could ever exist a near perfect record. It's not often I find an album that meets that criteria, but here comes Deathspell Omega to prove me very, very wrong. A frightening sense of isolation exists throughout this album from the spacious ambiance of the both "Obombration" songs, to the uneasy churning muck of the 11-minute monster "The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election," to the petrifying silence that starts halfway through "The Shrine of Mad Laughter," each song is a part of a larger journey this album takes you on, particularly to underscore the unabashed horror of the Christian religion and its hypocrisy so bare and naked. All the while, the slower parts are adequately complemented by the performances of the band members. Those moments of calm, though they give a brief moment of solace, promulgate the utter destruction of whatever faith the poor souls who listened to this had, now being sucked away into a black void of nothingness.

If this album or any of the albums with Mikko Aspa are any indication (with maybe the exception of Si Monvmentvm...), I can see why Deathspell Omega refuses to play live. This is some unbelievably complex shit for black metal. It's not technical black metal, but I could see people making a good argument for whoever drums on this is one of the best drummers in black metal. Listening to him keep up with these insane, incomprehensible time and tempo changes is more than commendable. It's honorable and humbling. Going from calm progressive drumming to impossible kit destruction in less than a fraction of a second is one hell of a feat. Coming in right behind him is guitarist Hasjarl, who's guitar lines are disgustingly fast and dissonant to the point where there's almost no melody, yet still coming across as being so memorable. So many chords and riffs are just instantly stuck in your head the instant you hear them, like the riff that opens "Bread of Bitterness" or partway through "The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election." My favorite moment is near the end of "A Chore for the Lost" when he delivers these series of melodic riffs that couldn't make the song any more amazing than the rest of the songs here. Like how the hell does Hasjarl conjure up these infernal riffs? I can imagine from a cosmic black hole of from the deepest, most bottomless pit ever made. Khaos' bass lines are surprisingly clear when taking into consideration how this album is mixed and how everything seemingly mushes together in a blurring wall of noise. They shine through in the chaos, can be heard just fine, and are just as memorable as the guitar riffs.

The album ends with the second "Obombration," which I learned after looking it up was taken from the Latin word, "obumbrare," which translates to mean "shadow," or obumbrationem, which means "overshadowing," which is perfect as both open and bookend the album. The albums philosophical undertones come to a head with this closer. After everything you've heard, after all the chaos, the insanity, the unmitigated, unbridled syncope this album caused, you'd expect the closer would give you ample time to catch your breath and regain your discombobulated mental state. If you were naive enough to think such a thing, then Deathspell Omega are far smarter than you. What would you expect other than a dissonant piano playing softly in the background while horns play, slowly growing louder and louder as the paranoid claustrophobia sets in? The ending forces you to confront your deepest chasm of fears, to see with your own eyes the unearthly beasts of formless darkness, and leaves you unfathomably broken to the core of the threshold of your soul. And as you pick the pieces of yourself up to put back together again, you sit there wondering to yourself, "What?"

This album will take you on an experience you've never been on before. Musically, it's probably the most unpredictable thing I've ever listened to in my life. Forty-six minutes of pure terror, consternation, dread, anxiety, and horror. The realities of some of the darkest corners of our world can only be as shaking as this album. Every song is a testament to the evil of man, the futility of theocracy and religion, the intelligence of thinking for oneself, and the reverential devotion of the horned lord of Hell.

Every genre of metal has its perfect album or its near-perfect albums. Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?; Biomech; Left Hand Path; Nespithe; Nightfall; Dead As Dreams; In the Nightside Eclipse. Black metal has Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Agnem Aeternum, and it's perfect. I'll go so far to add it's not only one of the best black metal albums ever made, it's one of the best albums ever made.

Period.

Beast of Burden



..::TRACK-LIST::..

I. Obombration 4:48
II. The Shrine Of Mad Laughter 10:37
III. Bread Of Bitterness 7:49
IV. The Repellent Scars Of Abandon And Election 11:40
V. A Chore For The Lost 9:15
VI. Obombration 2:07



..::OBSADA::..

Hasjarl - Guitars
Khaos - Bass
Mikko Aspa - Vocals




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KubSXhTiHeY



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