Review Summary: This is no matter of everyday art.
Halfway through their career the curious members of Deathspell Omega departed from earthly life. Left to wander the vast plain of the music industry was a mere shadow of the olden soul, housing corrupted musicians hereby answering to something of entirely different nature.
Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice renewed a genre and captivated its admirers through a clear notion that spoke with a strident tongue; black isn’t black enough. Prior to that, the band’s vision held an obsession with the second wave of Norwegian black metal and made as much racket in the music scene as such an approach would deserve. A sudden distinction from former manners materialized in their first step to music-historical immortality; something that was no longer beset by primitive influence. Deathspell Omega's true debut was bound to an overall chaos that shrouded the night in total darkness and painted flames across the skyline. It revolutionized what in modern times with absolute certainty could be regarded as the black metal scene’s in praxis most extreme experiment. Demons grasp their instruments on it’s most fascinating offspring.
Deathspell Omega’s magnum opus
Fas – Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum (commonly abbreviated as
Fas) took the formula that was coined on its predecessor to an extreme, and delivers frenetic black metal with a psychedelic trait that would strike Pink Floyd with an immense sense of awe. The typical trademark of the genre has been dismissed with totality and replaced with a sound that many other bands in the scene has tried to make their own but never quite been able to live up to. What broods below the surface of this monster eats comparably ludicrous bands such as Mayhem and Burzum to breakfast from the tip of a teaspoon. The instruments is merely the foundation to an almost divine spirit that lingers within. Atmosphere and the conceptual traits over which the album rests are vital to the music’s genius. Listening should feel like being cast down the abyss of a psychedelic nightmare where notions such as joy, safety and welfare has been restricted to mythical rumors that mad, corrupted souls mockingly tattle of in the cold darkness. That’s the reality of Deathspell Omega.
Fas has more to it than what riffs, beats and vocals has to offer. Additionally, it’s to no surprise that this particular scene is flooded with naïve musicians who tell of equally naïve lyrical content; but this band further swagger with a sophisticated narration of metaphysical Satanism through the relationship between man, God and the devil. Superstition in consent with practicing the Abrahamic religions that starry-eyed Satanists ironically seem to favor has thankfully been dismissed. Intellectual theologian poetry blooms in its stead and the chaotic music serves as its medium. This is evidently no matter of everyday art.
The listening experience offers everything from curious guitar patterns in total disharmony to spooky ambient passages, and maintains the interest of a prying listener through genuine creativity and seductive, unconventional charm. The soundscape shrouds in ice cold psychopathy and an often very unsettling aura that ominously float over the listener’s head like an erratic thundercloud. That’s not to say that it’s in any sense unstructured. This is a highly delicate and elaborated form of music bound to support a type of systematic mess - an organized chaos. Should anyone take on the task of carefully dissecting the content on
Fas one would have to be set surrounded by an assortment of fifty speakers in the middle of a sound proof room. I’m an attentive listener but by listening with caution I notice all its subtle details and realize that perhaps I'm not quite as familiar to Deathspell Omega as I might think. Ironic harmony in unforgiving madness and chasms of still apathy makes for a truly great contrast, constructing exciting dynamics between every respective song; encircled by two instrumental tracks dubbed
Obombration. Disturbing choirs, complex drum patterns, echoes and layers of guitars shapes an ethereal soundscape that has never really appeared elsewhere in previous music experiments. This record is oblivious to traditional structure because it’s not constructed upon traditional music fundaments.
Whatever spurs the mysterious member’s interest for theologian poetry, black metal and renewal, we on the outside can only hope that it doesn’t cool off until they and their demons really does leave this mortal world.
Fas – Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum is a modern masterpiece and one of the most fascinating pieces of art ever to be blessed upon these ears. Exemplary black metal which truly lives up to its title.
