Review Summary: Striving for greatness by being disgusting.
It’s not uncommon for death metal to exude a sense of etherealness. No, this isn’t the same unearthly feeling that comes with electronic music where everything feels so cleanly produced and out of this world that it literally feels too good for us. Death metal, at least when done right, feels like it takes place in another dimension, one where civility and anything good natured has long been exterminated at the hands of something greater, something malevolent, leaving only the worst to survive. And Montreal Quebec’s Chthe’illist, on their full-length debut, finds that sweet spot between doom metal and technical death metal, channeling it to its darkest, most sludgy being, where every second feels polished off in a patina of anxiety and fear.
The first thing that’s clear about
Le Dernier Crepuscule is its deep-rooted instrumental proficiency. Time signatures are given little focus, yet the constant switching of measures shows off the band’s ability to adapt and change with next to no notice. “Voidspawn” is nothing if not an exploration of rhythm modifications, searching deep into the ways cohesion can be created when everything’s played together or when sections are stripped away to favor abrupt isolationism. It’s a drawn-out display of quickly morphing altercation between screechy guitar solos, ride cymbal-snare blasts, and an oddly stuttering electronic closer.
Oftentimes, Chthe’illist utilizes the barrage approach to make the tracks’ subtle differences in provision all the more gripping. The seemingly safe approach to delivering screams is undercut by Philippe Tougas’ almost pig-like animalistic growls that mimic an encounter with the worst nightmare’s monster. The attack on the senses that comes from the expeditious bass and guitar trudges only lasts momentarily, struck down by the soaring electric guitar riffs. But the most surreally transformative element of the album doesn’t lie in the instrumentation; it lies in the sound effects and impossible field recordings taken from its world’s most intimately cavernous locations.
Le Dernier Crepuscule feels like a platform for these inhuman entities, a proverbial wasteland for the band to give setting to their horrifically relentless imagery. The aptly titled “The Voices from Beneath the Well” starts with echoing water drips, an atmosphere colder than anything else on the album. After the setting is established, the death metal instrumentation storms in without hesitation, as if the band encapsulates the worst of the abyss, chasing you forever down endless tunnels of clammily looming death. Compare that to the eerily pious cold opening of finale “Tales of the Majora Mythos Part 1”, a track that grows from a shrieking battle cry of a guitar note and mutates into a sort of culmination of the album’s best moments. Two very different tones, both mastered seamlessly by the band over the course of an hour.
Chthe’illist doesn’t impose the groove metal aesthetics of Lamb of God or the melodic tendencies of heavy metal acts. They bathe in a self-infliction of toxicity, burrowing so far from vivaciousness it makes Slayer and Testament look lighthearted. They borrow the most devilishly hard-hitting elements from each subgenre of metal and lift them to damp, almost disgusting levels, wrapped tightly in doom metal drones and endless assaults. Everything about the debut feels purposefully painful, from the lyrical themes to the physically demanding song structures (just listening to the never-ending blasts of drumming and turbo-driven riffs of the guitar emit a burning sensation in the forearm of anyone considering learning to play them). This album was not made for enjoyment. Rather, in the words of Tougas on “Into the Vaults of Ingurgitating Obscurity”, it’s an expedition into the marshes of desolation, one where “you shall be feasted on for all eternity”.
But
Le Dernier Crepuscule is more than a harrowingly revolting display of metal tendencies. It’s witnessing the collapse of a society maligned by the void of benevolence, of experiencing the destruction of clean production, comprehensible vocalizations, and expectancies. Founded on the cataclysmic unknown and furthered by senseless delving into that blackness, Chthe’illist’s debut effort comes packaged with resounding tenacity and an even tighter attention to detail. Certainly a highlight in the Canadian tech-death metal scene, it seems all but finalized that this will be remembered as one of the year’s best moments in metal.
Score:
79
