Review Summary: Trha returns with an ice cold black metal EP that's perfect to beat the summer heat.
Calling Damián Antón Ojeda–the mastermind behind black metal projects Trha and Sadness, among others–”prolific” is a bit of an understatement; at the time of this writing his “complete works” personal Spotify playlist contains 522 songs and runs a whopping ninety-one hours–an impossible amount of music for anyone not named Buckethead or a member of Bull of Heaven. While his projects are known for seemingly spontaneously spawning full-lengths and extended plays out of nowhere, 2023 had for its first almost
seven months been devoid of any new proper solo material from either of Ojeda’s two most popular aforementioned projects. New releases so far this year had been relegated entirely to split albums with mostly obscure artists.
This remained the case until the early morning of July 21, whereupon vigilant Bandcamp obsessants found themselves notified of not one but
three new proper Trha releases. Listed second on their Bandcamp numerically, third alphabetically, and first in brevity, “rhejde qhaominvac tla aglhaonamëc” is another exceptionally solid addition to the Trha project’s already immense discography. Containing three tracks and running about twenty-four minutes in length,
rhejde… is the most straightforward and purely
black of the new trio, both compositionally as well as texturely. While some previous releases from last year (namely, “Tálcunnana…” and “Mã Héshiva…”, respectively) experimented with lengthier songs and more diverse influences,
rhejde… has a much more typical icy and booming atmospheric black metal sound with no track crossing the ten minute mark.
As if making a statement on how concise the record is intended to be, opener “nu'en shena, namvajvër” starts on a
fade in, blast beats and a melancholic “cathedralesque” synth melody rising up from the aether and barreling on from the get-go. Middle piece “turhëndroje” contrarily features both a lengthy ambient guitar opening and a uniquely booming bass sound to pull its own rolling tempo along. The latter portions of both tracks also devolve into slow banshee-wailing depressive black metal, an interesting throwback to the early works of the Sadness project.
While the first two pieces of “rhejde…” are definitely grade-A Trha tracks, it’s closer “helënahappa” that really steals the show and makes “rhejde qhaominvac tla aglhaonamëc” rank among the better Trha albums. The song opens with a sad clean guitar piece before exploding into a frantic rhythm that feels almost too fast for its own instrumentation to follow. After the briefest complete cut to silence, the tempo suddenly shifts
down into a more typical blast beat rhythm, the new simple chord progressions and conjunctive shriek feeling like another crescendo unto themselves.
It reminds very specifically of the same sort of build-release in the title track to Deafheaven’s
Sunbather about three minutes in; after a brief clean break there, Sunbather also exploded into powerful black metal where its quick rhythm guitar was bolstered by the simplicity of its slow chord progressions, allowing each time to pummel away at the listener before transitioning to the next. When Trha shift down their tempo they create the same kind of jolt of sonic whiplash, pummeling you with those same kind of powerfully simple chords that sound as triumphant as they are melancholic. That sense of triumph is peaked when the track shifts down again into an anthemic punk beat to finally ride out the end of the album.
Of the three proper Trha solo releases this year (so far),
rhejde qhaominvac tla aglhaonamëc is by far the best. Its return to a rather suffocating black metal sound effectively found space to combine the styles of Trha’s more aggressive earlier works with the project’s more recent turn toward uplifting melodies and anthemic punk. While it’s much shorter than most Damián Antón Ojeda diehards are probably used to, its brevity makes every of its three tracks stand out well on their own–particularly its closer. And for all those reasons it can stand firm as one of, if not the, best black metal albums of the year thus far.
P.S. This somehow got longer than a usual rev for an EP. Oh well! Just listen to that jumpscare of a stop-start crescendo in the second track and get back to me.
xoxo cheq trha
