Keeping it true to its Luciferian chameleon nature, this ancient Texan conceptual black metal band has toiled its share in obscurity, being denigrated in the eyes of music-minded people while being praised by unhallowed souls who seek an ever more frightening vision of darkness inside this elusive style prone to normalization. The heavy shades of musical history, conservationist mindset and appraisal of beauty that characterize Texan metal such as Absu is hardly in line with the distorted, belligerent and insensitive provocations of Houston’s Black Funeral. 
Key moments from the sadistic noise of “Vukolak” are hardly recognizable as black metal, instead taking the most psychotic element of the lo-fi ethos to unparalleled heights, directed only by the quest to unveil another mythical night creature (the Eastern European merciless forest beast vukolak), one of the mutations in a long series of albums dedicated to beings from the nether, shut out from the conscious mind of man but existing in dreams and irrational impulses. As a practical magician, Nachtoter is fully aware of the potency of a wedding between symbolic sound and a haunting tale that has tortured the minds of a people of a hundred generations. While doing this, he is sure to alienate a good ninety percent of even black metal devotees, unless the constantly maiming and shifting abstraction he calls composition at this point is attractive to attention seekers; at surface it would seem only murderers and madmen dare listen to his insane conjuration, despite moments of traditional medieval beauty in the well-placed interludes “Sanctum Wamphyri” and “Wolfskin Essence”. Mr. Ford remains a master, not so much in musical skill (which sometimes seems to deteriorate over time) or literate esotericism (where he is convoluted and counterintuitive), but of bringing alive an ancient dark myth framed in subtle psychic terror.
Remembering the true-as-fuck black metal violence of Thornspawn demo from more than one decade ago, likewise the pulsating anti-music corruption of satirical Rehtaf Ruo, it was with some excitement that I picked up this promo from San Antonio’s supergroup, expecting a manifestation of the infamous “Sacrifice of the Nazarene Child” fest before my eyes in the form of fire-breathing succubi and inverted cross timpani encased in malevolent crystalline forcefields, but instead I got this slab of adequate, grooving, hate-filled black metal somewhere between the rhythmic energy of Averse Sefira and the easy solutions used by Satyricon to nauseating effects. 
The emphasis is on constructing the song out of simple, fiery riffs which are memetic enough to adapt themselves alike to a blastbeat or a churning Hellhammer pound, but the deceit comes across in the fact that the album in its whole chooses to explore neither direction, but grinds along at mostly mid-pace, like someone trying to look tough while walking in front of a church and shouting “are you talking to me?” at God. Likeable elements are a plenty, such as the moments when a hardcore influenced three chord riff bursts into an atonal pattern underpinned by an expert rhythm on drums while the cleverly restrained hoarse voice arrangement emphasizes tension instead of drama, making it easier to concentrate on the fragile atmosphere resurgent in the Christ-opposing ideas at play. Hod’s metal seems quite honest in purpose and recognizably Texan, mostly being cursed by Blood Storm’s and Divine Eve’s better takes on similar influence and subject matter. But the content that is simultaneously grounded and packaged, like the automated output of the Swedish scene, unfortunately makes “Serpent” sparsely appear in memory or in record player.
Blaspherian – Allegiance to the Will of Damnation
Heavy and pounding constantly almost like an old Manowar song has been transposed to the symbols of a Texan death metal notebook, the abilities of Wes Weaver in conjuring an evil sabbath of languid subversive black metal bliss are proven a second time; the first was, of course, Imprecation’s semi-classic “Theurgia Goetia Summa” one and a half decades ago. 
Absolutely unwavering, panzer-like in insistence, Blaspherian weaves slow melodies and processional passages of chords together mimicking funeral organ alternately on rhythmic chugs over slow double bass and tremolo runs giving slight nods to both Necrovore and Goatlord, always keeping to some ideal of profane serene moonlit beauty in the symmetry and progressive elegance with which this basically simple music unfolds, notable being for example the surprising tempi and energetic tension of “Curse His Name”. What is to be applauded is that Blaspherian takes absolutely no filler into this tight mini-album where it would have been easy to recombine for endless tedium. If a more critical angle is required, it’s possible to say that melodic possibilities and thematic spheres aren’t quite yet expanded on this debuting work; the epic aerial elegance of keyboards in “Theurgia Goetia Summa” for example has no counterpart on “Allegiance to the Will of Damnation”, which on the other hand benefits from the ascesis of the sound, conjuring to mind images of barren mountaintops where witches gather to dance under the stars, amidst shrubberies, and pay heed to the commands of Lord Baphomet who guides the anti-social in the harmonic ways of nature forgotten by a society occupied with trading trivial goods and vain honours. In such a situation it is obviously better to live in shame and obscurity. By this logic Blaspherian remains elité, even if they are and remain unnoticed by the majority of those who profess listening to death metal or black metal, for the benefit of cowards.
Thanks for the heads up on the new Black Funeral! I just recently came across this band via the ANUS site and picked up AZ-I-DAHAK, disturbing and dark! I can only hope the newest is comparable!
Comment by TheWaters — June 23, 2010 @ 22:25
“but grinds along at mostly mid-pace, like someone trying to look tough while walking in front of a church and shouting “are you talking to me?” at God. ”
Haha, this is hilarious.
Never managed to get into Black Funeral and Blaspherian is probably old news to everyone reading this, reading the reviews is always a pleasure though.
Comment by Morbid lad — June 23, 2010 @ 23:21
“shouting ‘are you talking to me?’ at God” – LOL!!!!!
@TheWaters: I also recently picked up AZ-I-DAHAK and really like it, but so far Vukolak has been maybe just a little TOO “belligerent and insensitive” for me. I would download and preview it first.
Comment by Jim Necroslaughter — June 24, 2010 @ 17:50
Black Funeral is from Indiana, if I’m not mistaken. Even the two prior bands before BF are not from Texas. Or perhaps they have relocated to Texas? Would appreciate if you could clear this up. (I don’t mean to be nitpicky but I think you guys would fix an error if you made one)
I’ll definitely check out BF’s newest, though.
Comment by deadite — June 24, 2010 @ 18:56
Thanks Jim, will do!
Comment by TheWaters — June 24, 2010 @ 22:47
deadite: Michael Ford relocated to Houston in 1999, according to Wikipedia. This is consistent with the location reported by the band myspace. But I always have difficulty deciding whether Inquisition is US or Colombian, Beherit from Rovaniemi or Helsinki, Morbosidad from Mexico or California etc.
Comment by Devamitra — June 25, 2010 @ 13:33
i was hoping Black Funeral would continue to develop the style they had on Az-I-Dahak. I am disappoint.
Comment by derp — June 26, 2010 @ 16:02
You know what, Vukolak isn’t bad at all. I’m glad I gave it another shot
Comment by Jim Necroslaughter — July 7, 2010 @ 03:44
[...] improve upon their promising debute Allegiance to the Will of Damnation, sharpening their focus by developing riffs as themes, stacking multiple variations of a similar [...]
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