DEATHSPELL OMEGA — The Synarchy of Molten Bones (review)

DEATHSPELL OMEGA — The Synarchy of Molten Bones album cover

Album · 2016 · Black Metal

5/5 · 2016-11-08
siLLy puPPy

A staggering six years after their last full length album and four since their EP “Drought,” the ominous and mysterious DEATHSPELL OMEGA has decided to play peek-a-boo with their admiring public by leaving the shrouded mists of their Luciferian whereabouts purportedly to be in their native France in order to drop their newest musical expressions of horror metal that psychoanalyzes the human condition and delves into the deepest recesses of the human mind to unleash their unique brand of sonic terrorism that brashly rips through the soul and extinguishes hope, slays unicorns and obscures light-filled rooms with impending doom and darkness

The title track begins with a short classically oriented soundtrack symphony before the full DEATHSPELL OMEGA fury is unleashed just after a minute cutting to the chase of the better most chaotic and dissonant aspects of “Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum.” Chaotic eddies of sound circle like sharks around the wounded blood-dripping frenetic wretched shrieks that pontificate Satanic litanies and intellectual quandaries of humankind’s relationship to the greater cosmos. The many aspects of the previous decade’s “Si Momvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice” to “Paracletus” seem to have been unleashed simultaneously and are now battling it out to see who will conquer Hades itself and become the new dark master.

“Famished For Breath” continues the brutal chaotic buzz saw guitar churning out oblique and angular chops at breakneck speed with no apparent song structure other than tortured screaming chants of anguish as the beam of light in the sonic tornado. This track picks up even more steam as well as more bantering bedlam. While on previous releases DSO would unleash dissonant cleaner jangle chords separately from the buzz saw fury distortion of the guitar and bass combo, here they all continue their mosh pit glissade.

After a short respite of simply jangle guitar dissonance “Onward Where Most With Ravin I Meet” continues in full pandemonium by suddenly erupting into tumultuous instrument abuse and anarchic oscillations that churn on for indefinite amounts of time and then suddenly transmogrify into a new form of horror metal yet never simmering down into a digestible orderly fashion. This is chaos but chaos on a leash where the leash appears to be the vocals centering the swarm of sonic madness around its core however the ending of this one surprisingly calms down as if the eye of the hurricane has offered a brief glimpse of placidity between the destructive pummeling tentacles of sound.

“Internecine Iatrogenesis” jumps back into the chaotic frenzy with Herculean percussive pyrotechnics, even more sinuous angular rhythms and a sense of the strongest part of the storm hitting like a category 5 hurricane that parked itself over the village only to obliterate it to smithereens. This “Iatrogenesis” is more than an adverse effect from a medical complication but rather the full wrath of the gods delivering every available lightning bolt and power allowed them for complete and utter annihilation of the helpless masses below.

Whew! This sounds like a Satanic inspired “greatest hits” of sort that takes all the elements of the band’s career and throws them at the listener like a juggler pummeling a passerby with chainsaws. While ferocity is common in the heavier arenas of black metal, only DSO juxtaposes intensity with tonal dissonance and a nerve racking jitteriness like no other. Rarely does black metal have a genuine feel that it was directly channeled from the Dark Lord. This is “music” that is guaranteed to stimulate those already indoctrinated into the cult but for the rest who dare not trespass into these arenas, stay far away and if this comes near you, run and hide. A true soundtrack for Mordor here.