Review Summary: Darkness everybody! DARKNESS!
“Dissonant black metal” has become a thing over the past 10-15 years or so. Deathspell Omega is the band that popularized the sound with albums like
Fas and
Paracletus, combining the normal black metal tremolo picking and blast beats with an extremely dense and claustrophobic atmosphere that makes you feel as if you’re suffocating. The trend continued into the 2010’s with the Icelandic scene with bands like Misthyrming and Sinmara among others. Since then, loads and loads of bands have tried to emulate that exact sound, and while most can get the sound down, they couldn’t match the sheer intensity or hellish soundscapes of the aforementioned bands. Selbst is a band from Venezuela that does indeed play a dissonant style of black metal, but they add a South American flare to it.
Despondency Chord Progressions is an absolute onslaught of devilish riffs and agonizingly beautiful vocals combined with an atmosphere that feels like these Venezuelans are dropping the weight of their homeland crashing into your skull at 200 miles per hour. This thing is just straight-up ***ing HEAVY AND EVIL, just like black metal is supposed to sound. Selbst manage to stand out from their peers in the way that you can feel their roots in their music. You can really begin to distinguish the differences from other bands of the same style in the way that a lot of the riffs are arranged and their tone. It’s a bit “twangy”, obviously not in the country music style of twang, but that particular sound makes Selbst stand out in ways that some of their counterparts do not. In terms of the vocals, they’re not a typical black metal shriek in the normal sense of the word. They’re more throaty and almost phlegm inducing, sounding like more of a gurgle than a scream, and they fit the style that Selbst goes for to absolute perfection.
Dissonant black metal can be a mixed bag for lots of people. You may listen to
Despondency Chord Progressions and think it's just another band playing this dissonant style of black metal and let it go in one ear and out the other. But if you REALLY listen, you can pick apart the differences that I mentioned and really start to appreciate what Selbst is doing and the fact that they add a native flare to their brand of evilness.
