Review Summary: Purposefully obscure black metal done right - for the most part.
Funereal Presence is the solo side project of Bestial Devotion, the drummer of somewhat less obscure black metal act, Negative Plane. Bestial Devotion is the one man responsible for all of the instruments and vocals put into his debut full-length
The Archer Takes Aim. Of course, this album is only available as a black LP in very limited quantities through Sepulchral Voice Records, or digitally through a streaming service like Spotify.
Very shortly after dropping the needle or tapping the play button, the listener will notice the album’s sub-par production. The instruments sound icy and shrill, and almost as if they are quite far away. The bass - whether it be drum or the guitar, is stomped to an all-time low in the mix, reminiscent of an 80’s thrash metal album. The vocals are quiet and share the distant sound of the rest of the instruments. This kind of raw, organic sound is nothing unexpected when it comes to listening to an album like this.
Bestial Devotion, a drummer by trade, is far from a novice on the strings. The 48-minute album is full of sections of intense prolonged tremolo, quick, galloping riffs and countered by slower, more atmospheric refrains all delivered with a crisp, sharp tone that can be truly appreciated by any serious metal fan. On the flip side, certain guitar parts may go on just a bit too long for some, and the bass - as to be expected is lifeless, repeating the same note in tempo with the other instruments in a dull staccato for most of the album. Across each of the 4 songs’ epic runtimes, dark, ominous bells of death ring out - signaling that the end is near.
The lyrics penned and recorded by Bestial are right out of a lurid Nordic or European style mythical apocalypse story. While a majority of the lyrics will sound similar to anything a listener even somewhat familiar with black metal has heard in the past, there are some truly great lines to be found here that stick out through the fog of the generic dark themes.
From gutted Heavens comes the Deluge
The flaming Dagger tears the Soul apart
Grotesque old, angelic young
Small and great; flayed and hung
The crepuscular lyrics are mostly brought to ear on the back of a frigid, tormented shriek drowned in reverb. However, sections of the album feature a deep, vibrato heavy, discordant chant planting an image of the suffering and anguish brought onto mankind by mysterious dark beasts. At first listen, the words spouted by Bestial Devotion may be undecipherable, but one quick readalong with the lyrics in hand should fix any mishearings.
It’s interesting that a drummer is behind this twisted musical arrangement, mainly because the drumming on this release is so incredibly boring and without a doubt the weakest point of the release. While an argument could be made that the rarely changing patterns cranked out by Bestial are only suiting to the rest of the music; the listener will more than likely find that the seldom changing tempo or paradigm of the drumming for nearly the entire album to be very colorless. The first few minutes of each track on the album contain drumming that almost could pass for the
exact same track being played for all four songs.
Overall,
The Archer Takes Aim is a
solid underground black metal release. While the lyrics may not prominently feature anything fresh or unheard of to the genre, the actual vocals themselves are superb. The guitar work here is also impressive, although the album as a whole unit is unfortunately bogged down by subpar drumming and bass, only made worse by production unacceptable in the year 2014.
