DEATHSPELL OMEGA — The Furnaces of Palingenesia (review)

DEATHSPELL OMEGA — The Furnaces of Palingenesia album cover

Album · 2019 · Black Metal

4/5 · 2019-05-30
siLLy puPPy

Palingenesis or PALINGENESIA is the concept of rebirth which is used in disparate subjects such as philosophy, theology, politics and biology but also appropriately applies to one of the metal universe’s most mysterious avant-garde blackened bands that lurks in the shadows somewhere in Poitiers, France, namely DEATHSPELL OMEGA. Having begun as a mere Darkthrone inspired clone, the first rebirth found this band taking the world by storm with the lauded trilogy of albums that not only created some of the most technical and adventurously progressive black metal workouts in the known universe but single-handedly advanced the Satanic metaphysical principles of the black metal paradigm to an advanced occult theology that relied heavily on the themes of French surrealist Georges Bataille and the German idealist Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel but nonetheless reanimated them in extreme metal grandeur. The results were simultaneously eerily frightening and deviously delicious.

Having released six albums, several EPs and splits that pretty much found DOS sticking to their established paradigm, the band returns for their seventh official full-length album THE FURNACES OF PALINGENESIA which finds the power trio of vocalist Mikko Aspa, bassist Khaos and guitarist Hasjari emerging from the scenes in order to provide yet another bantering boisterous assault of unadulterated evil. While no drummer is credited, this anonymous entity returns to the pummelation power throne for another round of jazzy progressive blastbeats as well as the standard laissez-faire percussive drive that finds THE FURNACES OF PALINGENESIA revisiting the DOS playbook as well as integrating new unexpected sources of inspiration into its ever expanding liturgy of the darkened metaphysical tomes of the esoteric underworld.

Opening with the by now familiarity of spidery jangled guitar dissonance on “Neither Meaning Nor Justice,” the album begins much like “Paracletus” as it gets right down to business with the raspy vocal utterances emerging from the post-metal cyclically looped riffs in a mid-tempo prowl. Right off the bat, the subtleties are apparent as to how this album slightly differs from the previous releases. While the shock and uniqueness of DOS has long worn off and the avant-garde bombast and stylistic idiosyncrasies have become inured to the hardened musical masochists, the band constantly seeks new methods to infuse clever new twists and turns into the overwrought orotundity which loses none of its frenetic and soul searing prowess. Heavier atmospheric murkiness lurks over the compositions in opposition to previous albums. While ambience and mood enhancing electronica have always served the dark side well, on this album they work in tandem to steer the pearlescent obliqueness into more dynamic chunks of the blackened expressionisms.

While 2016’s “The Synarchy of Molten Bones” sounded more like a summary of the most aggressive attributes of the DOS stylistic approach, THE FURNACES OF PALINGENESIA engages the post-rock and psychedelic softer aspects and the extremes of “Fas-Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum.” Dare i even say that many of the compositions on PALINGENESIA are slightly less demanding at least in the frenetic display of zigzagging through various angularities and tend to focus on the post-rock / cyclical riffing loops that display variations through dynamics and instrumental interactions that ratchet up the tension to pyroclastic explosive bouts of bombastic bravado. While the standard DOS expectations are the status quo, “Standing on the Work of Slaves” comes off as distinct in that it has a nonchalant military march sort of percussive drive as well as a more standard tremolo display of black metal guitar fury.

With 11 songs that clock in near the 45 minute mark, DOS recorded this album live in the studio and mixed it all on analog gear which continues the band’s fascination with classic 70s progressive rock only expressed through the lens of the Satanic underbelly of the black metal exemplar that brings forth the demonic dementia of the philosophical underpinnings. For those well steeped in the sonic psychic attacks of the DEATHSPELL OMEGA idiosyncrasies, THE FURNACES OF PALINGENESIA will continue the journey into the belly of the beast for another well established display of black metal magic performed through the menacing skull-crushing antics of one of black metal’s most ambitious and consistently terrifying underground realities and while THE FURNACES OF PALINGENESIA may not usurp the majesty of the impacts made by the Satnaic trilogy albums, it certainly does not disappoint in keeping the DOS ferocity alive and well. This band is in no danger of selling out or becoming a parody of themselves and while i find this album less compelling than those that preceded, it certainly warrants the essential status within the band’s ever expanding continual canon.