DEATHSPELL OMEGA "The Furnaces of Palingenesia"

DEATHSPELL OMEGA 

"The Furnaces of Palingenesia"

"Creepy" and "Sinister" are words often carelessly bandied about when discussing black metal bands, but no band deserves to be described with those accolades more than France's Deathspell Omega. There has always been something seriously warped about this mysterious cabal and "The Furnaces of Palingenesia" is no exception. It easily continues their legacy of uneasy musical and intellectual rebellion.

Black metal is a term always used to describe Deathspell Omega but the band has little in common with the typical concept of that term. Like BLUT AUS NORD, they exist in their own dimension, safely separated from boilerplate black metal. They've created their own sound using dissonance and distorted tones to sound "off"...sometimes just slightly, sometimes wholeheartedly, but always outside the musical norm. This record is full of such twisted melodies and odd, often mid-paced or slow song structures. It is queasy listening.

One of the strongest aspects of the band are the sublimely growled vocals, having more in common with death metal than the usual blackened rasps but still far from usual. The lyrics are more in the vein of strident manifestos and spoken word instead of expected song lyrics. The manifesto here seems to be an utterly sinister call for mankind to embrace a new kind of slavery based on his own lies and false ego. "We will burn and not explain and this will feel ecstatic" is just a sample of their anti-philosophy, which is ultimately more upsetting than the usual bargain bin Satanism.

Like all Deathspell Omega releases, this is not pleasant listening in the least, but it is challenging and gets to the root of all extreme metal.

NORMA EVANGELIUM DIABOLI

DEATHSPELL OMEGA