Review Summary: An EP that lives up to Esoctrilihum’s ever-ascending reputation
Asthâghul is just a different breed. The man behind blackened death metal project Esoctrilihum not only churns out albums at an almost unfathomable pace, but also clears a high bar each time. His latest piece,
Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath, was his sixth full-length LP in five years and arguably his most well-received. The 2021 album of the year contender demonstrated continued growth from 2020’s
Eternity of Shaog without sacrificing any of the brazen creativity that makes this project so special. Yet another 2021 release has been yielded to us courtesy of Asthâghul’s enviable work ethic:
Urionhsol (Seven Demons) follows up
Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath’s beautifully orchestrated madness with yet another powerful release to spellbind and petrify listeners. Offering a delightfully deranged thirty-five minutes’ worth of dense, ominous hellscapes, it’s an EP that lives up to Esoctrilihum’s ever-ascending reputation.
Urionhsol (Seven Demons) could be seen as a brief showcase of Asthâghul’s greatest strengths. The unpredictable and ever-changing scream techniques present on the title track demonstrate why Esoctrilihum is such an untraditionally palatable artist, weaving such moments of intensity between his rhythmic barks and snarls in a brilliant depiction of his versatile skillset. His intense delivery is what makes Esoctrilihum’s music
feel so demonic and otherworldly, and ‘Urionhsol (Seven Demons)’ portrays how his unique vocal style could be an asset to a wide range of atmospheric settings. The title track also shows how off-the-wall his songwriting really is, delivering one of Esoctrilihum’s most brutal assaults in what is also perhaps his most synth-driven track to date;
Dy'th Requiem fans might look to ‘Salhn’ as a point of reference for the heavy synth integration alone, but ‘Urionhsol’ is arguably even bleaker. Opener ‘Surthin’ is a lightning storm of riffs that also sees his drums pummeled so unforgivingly that you’d wonder if the skins survived, while the twenty-one minute closer ‘Zi Dynh Gtir’ is more spacious – violins and gorgeous synths opening up the song’s atmosphere like a beautiful ravine that drops straight into the raging fires of Earth’s core when Asthâghul flips that switch and plunges the music into total darkness again. It’s both breathtaking and terrifying, which seems like a pretty good summation for what Esoctrilihum brings to the table with each successive release.
Esoctrilihum is a truly inventive and forward-thinking artist who deserves your attention regardless of your typical genre preferences, and
Urionhsol (Seven Demons) is merely further proof of that. Few artists could conjure up something this eerie, adventurous, and avant-garde – let alone in such short order. Then again, that’s basically par for the course with Esoctrilihum: daunting, boundary-pushing black/death metal that sounds like everything imaginable, but is churned out like it’s nothing.
