For most death metallers, evil is not spread at the behest of a paranormal entity lurking beyond the horizon, demonic possession or a tempter, but instead there is a devious core of man’s unawareness, parasitic tendency and “blind leading the blind”, leading society to a vicious circle of uncaring mutants annihilating each other through various games and contrivances of modern culture, seen as necessities. Immolation, one of the most skillful yet direct conjurers of death metal art, organized “Unholy Cult” as a series of statements in man’s capacity to evil and the existentialist oblivion in realizing God’s falsehood, because despite the possible existence of transcendental unity the hypocrite “cults” of man wreck the vision into a disturbed dualism. Rarely has death metal sounded as subtle and smooth, yet nerve tingling, as the best line-up the band ever had utilizes its effortless sense of dynamics to “groove in” an approaching storm of apocalypse with subdued counter-rhythm of Hernandez against the dissonant riff, something their obvious modern copycats Deathspell Omega often fail to do because of flawed pacing. Distinct from “Close to a World Below” in fist-pumping doom and black metallic blastbeats interjecting the symphony of diminished intervals, making this probably the first step in the gradual descent of Immolation to “meet their audience”; however here the impression is not pandering at all but perfectly persuasive slithering of a mind-virus that awakens the listener to a moment of tumult realizing retroactively about five minutes of mental build-up having led to an indescribably intense resolution of themes akin to a musical Nibbāna where the tenets of both light and dark are annihilated in a moment of musical nihilism. As is shockingly customary for Dolan, Vigna and company, the songs are riddles and glyphs requiring a reasonable effort from the part of the listener to decipher and actually recombine the parts of the song in one’s mind and through the puzzle man is led to realize an impossible paradox of nature: evil as part of, yet beyond, theology. If blasphemous metal was ever made into a mental exercise, “Unholy Cult” is the crystallized moment of it.
Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Brutal Death Metal, Death Metal, New York Death Metal, Philosophy, Progressive Death Metal, Religion — Devamitra @ August 17, 2010 12:20 — Comments (1)
Amazingly fine review of one of my favourites from Immolation. This album is flawless, and your words about reorganizing the different moods into stories etc. is correct, it’s just the way I listen to this album. Morbid Angel – Blessed Are the Sick and Atrocity’s two first are two other favourites in this reorganization-style, where riffs are similar and interweaving, with emphasis on mood, with free interpretation, guided only by these moods as instigators for thought. Yes, just like a shaman giving clues, to ones own destiny and the story of life… Ever noticed how the feeling of distraught over a world in pain is amazingly replicated in ”Bring Them Down”? You can really feel god seeing his failures, through his no longer dim vision. ^^
Comment by Reginhard — August 22, 2010 @ 04:06