DEATHSPELL OMEGA — Mass Grave Aesthetics (review)

DEATHSPELL OMEGA — Mass Grave Aesthetics album cover

EP · 2008 · Black Metal

5/5 · 2019-05-18
siLLy puPPy

DEATHSPELL OMEGA are notorious for releasing EPs between their full-length albums, however this band has also released non-album material on multi-band splits starting as far back as the year 2000, the same year as the band’s debut album “Infernal Battles.” The sprawling sonic banter that has been titled MASS GRAVE AESTHETICS made its first debut all the way back in 2005 on the four-way split album “From The Entrails To The Dirt” which was featured as the last track following the bands Malicious Secrets, Antaeus and Mütilation. While this originally was released between the first two installments of the Satanic trilogy albums, the 19 minute 43 second track was released independently as a 2008 EP between the second two episodes of 2007 “Fas-Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum” and 2010’s “Paracletus.”

The track’s epigram was directly taken from the writings of the French satirical poet, anarchist, polemicist, essayist, and translator, Laurent Taihade whose works caused quite a societal stir in 1890s Paris. This excellent track would make Monsieur Taihade proud as it showcases DEATHSPELL OMEGA’s supreme rule over the black metal domain with yet another chilling and crushing mix of dark ambient atmospheric creepiness in unholy cahoots with highly technical buzzsaw pyrotechnics blessed by dark angels and Satan himself. The mid-2000s were DSO’s most innovative time when they found their own calling and the right techniques for breaking through the crowded black metal world. MASS GRAVE AESTHETICS sits comfortably side by side with “Fas-Ite..” as it incorporates all the same diverse masteries of dark psychological warfare via fear porn in the form of sonic intensity.

MASS GRAVE AESTHETICS begins with crackling static as if Satan himself had portaled from the depths of hell to attend the performance. The now-standard jangly dissonant guitar riffs that take a post-metal cyclical loop build the tension until the sudden onslaught of dissonant bombast allows vocalist Mikko Aspa to narrate the darkened Satanic diatribe and ratchet up the tension while the nuclear blasts of distortion and percussive pummelation are dropped like a bomb. Sudden stops allow the ethereal surreality of choirs tucked away in the background to shine through for brief moments but when the black metal frenzy begins again, the intensity is increased exponentially as every possible juggernaut of black metal fury is implemented. The pattern continues throughout this near 20 minute experience as dark ambient interludes allow blood-curdling industrial sounds to terrorize and gestate fear but always lead back to the most technically demanding and bombastic black metal outbursts of the entire metal universe.

DSO are masters of contrast and on this one-shot track that contains a whole album’s worth of intensity, the listener is treated to a series of stylistic shifts with an infinite number of guitar variations, bass grooves and percussive outbursts. The band changes things slowly at first like a slumbering salamander creeping through the dampened forest leaves that have dropped as winter approaches yet can burst into uncontrollable rage at the drop of a hat with impeccable time signature changes finding each musician in tandem and delivering lethal doses of orotundity. This is amongst DSO’s most developed works and sits amongst the very top of their canon in terms of not only intensity and technical wizardry but in sheer compositional prowess unlike any others. Like its counterpart “Fas-Ite,” MASS GRAVE AESTHETICS is one of the most frightening musical experiences that one can possible imagine where the darkness recesses of the human mind are pried open and sonic demons are allowed to impishly play mischievous tricks on the frail human psyche. Of course i looooove it!