siLLy puPPy As one of the 21st century’s most innovative black metal bands that raised the bar so high many modern black metal acts are still scrambling to find a way to propel the genre into the next chapter of its existence, DEATHSPELL OMEGA has become synonymous with epic black metal that retains the occult subject matter of the second wave 90s and steers it into the progressive world of pseudo-classical musical scores with long unpredictable compositions. Most famous for the legendary Satanic trilogy that included “Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice,” “ Fas – Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum” and “Paracletus,” the last decade since that trilogy’s conclusion has sort of been retreaded the same ideas presented on those albums and although mind-blowing and brilliant, with 2019’s “The Furances of Palingenesia” seemed like DSO may have peaked and become stuck in a rut of its own making.

Well, a band doesn’t become the world’s most famous in a particular musical niche for no reason. These musicians seem to have the knack for reading the tea leaves and taking things in another direction when necessary. That time has come and DSO is back with its ninth official full-length album (although some of the EPs have similar playing times) titled THE LONG DEFEAT which finds these blackened ones emerging from their crypts to bedazzle the black metal fans with uncompromising technical instrumental interplay, epic compositional fortitude and the band’s classic subject matter of Satanic theology dripping in atonal guitar riffing, dramatic dissonance and a musical procession that ranges from slow plodding dirge-like lallygagging to fully fueled metal rampages through the catacombs of legendary underworlds.

THE LONG DEFEAT features three parallel storylines if you even bother to follow that aspect of the album’s nerdy inner workings. The lyrics of course narrate two separate tales with the third finding expression through the artwork but of course you would have to purchase the physical product to indulge in these Easter egg hunts. While available digitally in its simple form, THE LONG DEFEAT has also found a lush black vinyl release with a 6-panel folded booklet and this album is the first emanation of the third era of DEATHSPELL OMEGA thus signifying that the band is in no danger of returning to the underworld from whence it came any time soon. The album does indeed take on a new demeanor without sacrificing all those now familiar DSO attributes which keeps this band on the top of its game. THE LONG DEFEAT is the perfect debut of the 2020’s.

Graced with five lengthy tracks, THE LONG DEFEAT opens with the lengthiest track “Enantiodromia” which opens with some wickedly blackened Tuvan throat singing techniques and slowly ratchets that good old DSO charm and sprawls on for nearly 12 minutes with the classic jangle guitar riffs, ferocious energetic outbursts of pure rage and a shifting palette of tones, timbres and tempos. Mikko Aspa features more clean vocals on this one than at any time in the past and the music showcases a more pronounced atmospheric backdrop in the vein of modern bands such as Mgła, Wolves In The Throne Room and a gazillion others however DSO takes the black metal experience where few have the cahones to venture and that is what sets these champions apart from the rest.

So what’s new? Well, THE LONG DEFEAT is a lot more melodic than any DSO score of yore. While the dissonant dressing is still in tact, the compositions are more poignantly defined with clear demarcations of melodic chunks that together forge a new stylistic approach for these mysterious dark dwellers however melody has always been an ingredient in the DSO playbook and while this feature has been placed more prominently in the forefront, it isn’t anything new. I guess what sounds different to my ears is that the band is more focuses on certain melodic grooves and play with many variations before moving on instead of metamorphosing into completely new musical terrain as in the past. The closing and shortest track “Our Life Is Your Death” at 7:15 implements some good old fashioned black’n’roll as its groove.

This will probably be a divisive album in the band’s canon as it deviates from the comfort zone that many have grown accustomed to but all in all this is another solid release from the DSO camp even if the shock value and progressive peak of the Satanic trilogy has long since dissipated. While slightly more melodic and dare i say mainstream than its predecessors, THE LONG DEFEAT features more than enough authentically badass DEATHSPELL OMEGA to please those enshrouded Satanic metaphysical diatribe fueled with vituperative caustic black metal angst. All in all this one seems like DSO has come to the realization it has nothing left to prove and now it’s time to try something new. In many ways this album makes me think of what Nergal was trying to achieve on Behemoth’s “I Loved You At Your Darkest” only to much greater effect. Personally i find this to be an excellent album that takes a new direction and although the band’s politics are a form of contention i personally only care about the music and for a new chapter of DEATHSPELL OMEGA, these guys could’ve done a lot worse.

siLLy puPPy DROUGHT was the second EP to emerge after the DEATHSPELL OMEGA’s attention grabbing Satanic trilogy of albums that showed the world that black metal could be as intellectually saturated with theological highbrow concepts accompanied by the most progressive and complex compositional fortitude of any advanced musical style while still hiding in the complete anonymity of darkness. Following 2011’s single tracked “Diabolus Absdonditus,” DROUGHT featured six separate tracks that more or less coalesced into a single 21 minute experience.

Cranking out the already established mix of jagged blistering black metal guitar riffs, bantering bass lines and technical percussive assaults accompanied by despondent Satanic liturgies in the form of raspy vocals, DROUGHT showcased yet another methodology of taking all the individual parts that made up the sonic terror of DEATHSPELL OMEGA and put it all together in yet another unique recipe. Although to the uninvited listener, this will all come across as bantering din from social deviants, this French band finds still more ways of mixing slow plodding, even doom metal fueled nonchalantness with caustic aggressive fury.

“Salowe Vision” opens as what sounds like a band fully exhausted from its decade long rampage with slow plodding riffs that sound as if the band is ready for a complete breakdown but emerges into top form on the fueled by Satan orotundity of “Fiery Serpents.” Fueled with jagged guitar riffs that seem to have taken an even more boastful pride in crating gnarled math rock inspired progressive time signatures, DROUGHT continues the swells of sonic scare tactics in a seemingly limitless ability to shape shift around simple rhythmic processions fortified with an endless array of darkened dynamics.

While “Diabolus Absconditus” seemed to thrive on its simplicity, DROUGHT on the other hand returned to the antics of the Satanic trilogy with incessant drifts of highly fustian freelancing that delivered an entire album’s worth of emotional torture tactics all in the short playing time of 21 minutes. While the shock value may have been long gone for members of the DSO cult, the perfunctory prowess of the musical complexities does not cease to impress. Few black metal bands have mastered the vast arsenal of tricks and trinkets that DEATHSPELL OMEGA has and although far into the band’s canon, DROUGHT only reinforces that this band had an extraordinary beyond human sort of talent that seemingly came from Faustian pacts with you know who.

DSO disappeared for several years after this and wouldn’t re-emerge from the underworld until 2016’s “The Synarchy of Molten Bones” but the band’s legendary status reverberated well into the 2010s with countless imitators adopting the highly complex and atonal characteristics that DSO launched with its lauded masterpieces of molten maniacal monstrosity. It seems that in many ways that this would end the first era of DEATHSPELL OMEGA’s reign as rulers of the black metal underworld and that what came after was simply a retread of all the established sounds that preceded. Fittingly the title DROUGHT signified the four year gap when DSO returned to the underworld to offer the captured souls that their music attracted. Sure the ticket is your soul but at least there is a 30-day satisfaction guarantee or your soul back! Whew, that was close :D

siLLy puPPy After completing it’s groundbreaking black metal series of albums that constituted the unholy Satanic trilogy, DEATHSPELL OMEGA wasn’t done terrorizing the world with its caustic uproar of jagged progressive black metal composiitons that promoted highly advanced theological Satanism but proved it was just getting started as this French band released two more EPs before taking a much needed break for several years.

Emerging the year after “Paracletus,” the one track release DIABOLUS ABSCONDITUS featured a 22 minute and a half frightening journey through a multitude of soundscapes seemingly originating from the bowels of hell yet effectively cranking out a never-ending processions of demons that allowed DEATHSPELL OMEGA to focus on the slower aspects of its sonic palette in order to craft some of the creepiest doom-ridden sounds that the band had crafted.

Proceeding much like post-metal with cyclical guitar riffs, DIABOLUS ABSCONDITUS finds plodding guitar riffs accompanied by the bass and lackadaisical drum rolls along with Mikko Aspa’s ominous vocal raspiness that cast a hypnotic although terrifying spell as the guitars slowly become echoey as if the band was fading in and out of our perception. While rhythmically monotonous with a steady beat that is punctuated by only occasional outbursts of aggression, the star of this show is the guitar which features a deliciously evil cauldron of tricks that offer enough variety to keep the entire run engaging.

Likewise the musical accompaniments such as the bass and drums also find clever yet seductive means of mastering a perfect triumvirate of instrumentation while the lyrics barrage the soul with darkened themes and slamming mind tricks. Perhaps the least aggressive of DSO’s jarring canon, DIABOLUS ABSCONDITUS nevertheless finds enough room to bring out the big guns with the expected bantering din-fest that assaults the senses with all those by now familiar outbursts of aggressive fury.

Perhaps not the most developed of the DSO releases, this one still is amazingly effective in scaring the bejeezus out of anyone who hasn’t acclimated themselves to this otherworldly musical effect that sounds like a soundtrack to the underworld. It’s utterly amazing how DSO can crank out so many different stylistic approaches with the same ingredients firmly in tact. The true genius of DIABOLUS ANBSONDITUS is how the subtleties conspire to create and effective sum of the parts with the usual contrasts and shapeshifting effects that haunted the Satanic trilogy albums that preceded.

siLLy puPPy Completing the third installment of the Satanic metaphysical trilogy that shocked the world with black metal being taken to unthinkable technical complexities with themes that focused on the highly advanced Satanic theology inspired by the philosophies of George Bataille, Michel Leiris and Pierre Klossowski, the French black metal band DEATHSPELL OMEGA released PARACETUS which is the Latinized form of the Greek world παράκλητος (parákletos), meaning “comforter,” and synonymous for the Holy Spirit. Released in 2010 after a couple of EPs and a split, PARACLETUS served as a recording that resolves the band’s three act magnum opus that made 90s black metal look like schoolchildren.

As anonymous and mysterious as ever DOS ended the trilogy with a collection of ten tracks that are more tightly constructed and really does have a feel of conclusion as if PARACLETUS is the final act where the resolving battle and judgment allow the dark forces’ reign comes to fruition. It wasn’t until i finally heard this third episode of DEATHSPELL OMEGA’s Satanic saga that it occurred to me that the trilogy really runs together, musically as well as thematically, as a single cohesive unit where each album resonates as an entire act of a much larger black opera for the lack of a better term. Following 2004’s “Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice” and 2007’s “Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum,” the latter of which introduced bizarre new dynamics that included dramatic pauses and stylistic shifts, where the final track “Obombration" essentially served as a two minute symphonic intermission designed to be followed.

That’s where PARACLETUS comes in as it eschews the subtle atmospheric swirls of “Fas - Ite” and instead jumps into the bombastic caustic and atonal jangle chord swarms of din of “Epiklesis.” The album overall is a much heavier and rampaging one with less moments of downtime in the form of slower creeping, almost doom metal in its processional prowl. Like the band’s previous album’s DEATHSPELL OMEGA doesn’t employ many new tactics on PARACLETUS as all had been established therefore this third installment of the trilogy comes off as less impacting as the shock value had been exhausted and the main focus is on the highly advanced compositions that tackle the complexities of progressive rock and 20th century classical music in black metal regalia.

Generally speaking the beginning and end of the album are heavier with rampaging stampedes of sound while the mid-section around “Phosphene” offer those cooling off periods with slower, less complex and more introspective ones often with choral chanting replacing the snarling raspy shrieks of Mikko Aspa’s effective vocal approach. The atonal jangle guitars appear in abundance as the tale of the virtues of advanced Satanism employ the multitude of stylistic shifts that DEATHSPELL OMEGA has mastered with nary a misstep in execution. While less depend on symphonic accoutrements, there are moments as in “Epiklesis II” where a parallel sound effect accompanies the jangle guitars but tracks like “Malconfort” with faster tempos and caustic sonic assaults are more the norm on PARACLETUS.

While excellently performed as usual it surprises me that PARACLETUS remains the most popular DEATHSPELL OMEGA release in some circles which perhaps is the result in that it’s a bit more accessible than its predecessors but is less effective for that otherworldly experience that the perfection of “Fas - Ite” delivered. For that reason PARACLETUS is my least favorite of the Satanic metaphysical trilogy of albums as it’s a bit more predictable and doesn’t really offer anything new to the DSO sound and rather relies on simply changing things around a bit. Despite the connective tissue that clearly links it with previous material, make no doubt about it that PARACLETUS is still worthy of concluding what many deem as black metal’s most effective multi-album run. For those who prefer the most bombastic of the trilogy, this one probably wins but i personally prefer the greater spectrum of stylistic shifts that “Si Monvmtvm” and “Fas - Ite” offered.

siLLy puPPy After the groundbreaking milestone of black metal complexities delivered by DEATHSPELL OMEGA with its lauded “Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum,” the band released two EPs before concluding the trilogy of albums that ended with “Parcletus” with themes that focused on the highly advanced Satanic theology inspired by the philosophies of George Bataille, Michel Leiris and Pierre Klossowski but then again pretty much everything this band unleashes on to the world is about those topics so in reality makes little difference how you approach them from a chronological point of of view.

The EPs “Mass Grave Aesthetics” and VERITAS DIABOLI MANET IN AETEMUM: CHAINING THE KATECHON were both released on 8 December 2008 however VERITAS was released both as an EP and as a split with the other French black metal band S.V.E.S.T. (stands for Satanas Vobiscum et Spiritum Tuo) which i suspect may have been DEATHSPELL OMEGA’s side project as a pseudonym because stylistic approaches and especially vocal style are suspiciously similar.

The DEATHSPELL OMEGA EP consists of the sole track “Chaining The Katechon” which refers to a New Testament term used to describe the one who prevents the rise of the Antichristand therefore stopping the second coming of Christ. The track clocks in just over 22 minutes but features the classic jaw dropping characteristics of the band’s Satanic trilogy that were instrumental in taking black metal into a much higher level of philosophical and progressive credibility.

Laced with the hallmark dissonant jangle guitar riffs and the transmogrifications from creepy slow tempos to buzzsaw blastbeat fueled black metal fury, CHAINING THE KATECHON essentially served as an intermission between the final two chapters of the Satanic trilogy but was every bit as intricately designed and fueled with some of the scariest combinations of sound that have ever haunted the metal universe. Ranging from Meshuggah-like swells of dissonant metallic passages to moments of Orthodox choir chanting, CHAINING THE KATECHON excels in conjuring up demons and dwells on dreadful sounding progressive black metal with the complexities leagues above the competition.

While DEATHSPELL OMEGA has been far from what one would call a melodic black metal band, the fact that scant melodic passages are inserted into the works ensures that just enough hooks keep the listener intrigued enough to prevent them from losing their minds as the atonal jagged guitar riffs chug along with creepy atmospheres and top notch precision percussive workouts. Mikko Aspa’s unmistakable vocal style dominates the chilling soundscapes with raspy declarations of darkened ideologies but finds more moments on VERITAS to offer clean narrative proses that add to the overall diverse rotisserie of progressively infused weavings of stylistic shifts.

While very much in the ghoulish spirit of the Satanic trilogy which bookmarks this EPs place in the overall canon, VERITAS DIABOLI MANET IN AETEMUM: CHAINING THE KATECHON more than stands up on in its own in the near indescribable freakery that DEATHSPELL OMEGA is capable of crafting. The beauty of this one is that it feels more like a condensed version of the longer albums where certain segments are truncated and serves as a sampler for those brave enough to dip into this band’s world of terrifying and horrific sonic assaults. This sole track is for sure one of the band’s finest moments and a mandatory extension of the brilliant triumvirate that remains the band’s finest hours.

(((O)))

The S.V.E.S.T. part of the split was also released separately as an independent EP. Side B of the original 12” vinyl release features three tracks but appears in some databases as the 23 minute track “Le Diable est ma Raison.” The slightly weaker of the two sides, S.V.E.S.T. supposedly was formed in Nantes, France around 1997 and tackles the identity subject points that deal with theistic Satanism, devil worship and metaphysics. The similarities both musically and artistically are suspiciously identical to those of DEATHSPELL OMEGA which has always led me to wonder if these are indeed the same artists and since little is known of any of these bands’ identities it’s very possible that they may be the same band or an overlap of members. S.V.E.S.T. is purportedly the duo of vocalist Spica and multi-instrumentalist Darkkarma.

S.V.E.S.T. delivers a less atonal black metal assault and also one that is more focused on repetitive riffs as opposed to sudden stylistic shifts. The frenetic nature is very much in sync with DSO’s most furious moments and Spica’s vocals sound exactly like Mikko Aspa’s. The music is more hypnotic and less jittery but still features those same progressive bouts of time signature deviations. This split emerged after S.V.E.S.T’s sole full-length album “Urfaust” which crafted the same Satanic mysterium only exuding a much more kvlt lo-fi production that was common with the early second wave black metal scene of the 1990s. Whereas DSO’s side of the split sounds more like a highbrow theological society with the cash to employ the best technological goodies for optimal production value, S.V.E.S.T. on the other hand sounds as if the thundering ruckus was recorded live in the bowels of hell during some ritualistic demon summoning through music. Yeah, it’s just as creepy and manic but more reserved in its delivery but perfectly complements Side A thus making VERITAS DIABOLI MANET IN AETEMUM: CHAINING THE KATECHON one of the most sought after splits in all of black metal.