The sun was in decline over the horizon’s eager maw When there opened a window adjacent to my soul And hiemal drafts swept in rivulets through my veins A voice spoke a greeting in foreign, repulsive syntax With coarsely articulated threats I could not parse Until quiet meditation wed gnosis with dawning horror As I beheld Death enthroned upon the infernal apex That beguiled the spirit with oblique falsehoods That when believed, embroiled the mind in throes of
perdition And hurtled the senses to the bleakest bitter cavern Swallowing with rapturous envy the remnants of hope
And so it was that I came to be as the faintest vessel As the darting shadows at the corners of the eyes Disincorporating in atoms now verminous and vile Thrown with disparate sensations into heinous realms Beset by turbid channels of mercurial static That neither stem from nor lead to any fluvial source But from which I must drink that which cannot slake thirst It was there madness wrote itself like an endless equation Composed of numbers wildly bent and of ill definition That thronged around my pallid, screaming remains Taunting in malevolent, reverberating tones
“There is nothing more to be,” they declared, at intervals with wisps of cacophonous laughter “That which you were, never truly was For the universe is a mouth that cannot feed Gaping in vain at a dark knowledge that cannot be digested, for it is enshrouded in roiling glacial waves of pitch black Incessantly dousing the final desperate embers of life, which fades upon a craquelured canvas shorn of stars And thereupon lay your discarded mask of flesh With barren expression and voice bereft of joy or wonder Now but the merest piece of entity ensorcelled by damnation The sum total of parts once amalgamated only by cruelest
happenstance Until the unfathomable depths of truth unto your thoughts
were rendered”
When the voices stopped speaking I awoke in my body Hushed, bewildered flutterings of despair prising my lips And so it is now that I contain the terrible wisdom of
Apophis In every waking glance toward the nefarious corridors of
Hell That forever linger at the trace of every wind and every
sound Like a prophecy insidious and twisted in its inevitability And no quietude can reach these ears that attend at the
periphery of reality Nor is peace beheld in these eyes that avoid the errant,
creeking taps Upon the glass of each reflection that stares with hateful
envy at the life it fascimiles The sun no longer rises over the desolate tundras of the
material And the sleep into which I desperately descend is void
masquerading as reprieve The axioms of ruin take hold; I will never awaken again
‘Music musings’ is a new little update I’ll likely start
adding to this blog every month or two. Basically, it’s a guide to a handful of
songs or bands/artists that I’m currently enjoying, what I think is good about
them, and some further recommendations or notes on my part. Some of what you’ll
see here, I may have reacted to on my channel, Nuclear Reactions, so
spoilers ahead if you’re not up to date on my videos. While others, I’ve
listened to privately, as I tend to do with a lot of black metal, for example.
Anyway, here are some of my current binges.
Lena Scissorhands ft. Death Dealer Union – Borderlines
As I said in my recent reaction to this, “Borderlines” is the song of the year for me so far, and one of the best representations of Lena’s vocal talents. Not only are her cleans and harshes equally outstanding, but the melody and main chorus really deliver on the memorability and catchiness, something that I enjoyed so much I was nearly caught off guard by it, because this isn’t Infected Rain – it’s simply Lena collaborating with Death Dealer Union, a band I had previously never heard of, but one that I’ll certainly be checking out now.
The band itself provided me with a spectacular introduction to their craft on this song, with fast-paced, chugging riffs and drumming that really leans into both groove and power in the way that it’s done throughout the song. The song as a whole is a perfect combination of heavy and melodic, without either of those attributes being negatively affected or watered down by the other. As I’ve stated so often on my YouTube channel, it’s a delicate balance to strike, but when it’s done the right way, the payoff is immensely rewarding for the listener. This was definitely the case for me, or I wouldn’t have replayed this song about 20 times since I first heard it. The song, along with its music video, dropped about two weeks ago, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, set aside everything else you’re doing and go listen to it now.
Theotoxin – Somnus Profanus
I’ll be honest, the album artwork caught my attention before
anything else. Theotoxin is a band that I’ve listened to a bit over the past
year, but I had mostly forgotten about them during the last several months –
not because the music wasn’t excellent, but because it simply got lost in the
seemingly endless pile of music I consume. Sometimes things get buried, only to
be rediscovered and enjoyed later on. But yeah, the photo of a nun with her
head in a noose immediately stood out to me, and when I recognized the band
name, “Somnus Profanus” was the first song I listened to a few nights ago,
followed by every other song off that record, Consilivm, which was their
second full-length, released in 2018.
Between the threshing, militant guitar riffage, the
artillery fire blastbeats, and the harsh vocals defined by ferocity and
delivered in roars and shrieks, “Somnus Profanus” is a mind ravaging,
exhilarating, and appropriately hellish entry point into Theotoxin’s music. The
song dances on the periphery of bestial black metal, but really goes full tilt
into traditional black metal territory, with a twinge of death metal mostly represented by
the percussion and vocals. Excellent stuff that I’ll be replaying for a while.
Yungblud – The Funeral
Speaking of ‘something different’ – let’s get completely
away from metal for the moment with Yungblud, who put out this weirdly
appealing gothy, semi-pop-punkish, 80s-esque song called “The Funeral.” I have
to admit, I’ve never really sat down and listened to Yungblud’s solo work; I’d
previously only ever heard him doing guest vocals with MGK or Bring Me The
Horizon, and here he employs a completely different style of singing. He comes
off like an eyeliner-wearing, modern version of Billy Idol with red hair, that
familiar snarky pop punk attitude, and – perhaps most interestingly – the presence
of Ozzy Osbourne in the official music video for “The Funeral.”
Look, there’s no way around it: the song is catchy as hell;
it makes you almost instinctually bop your head whether you want to or not. So
you can be a faux-unimpressed, judgmental metalhead all you want, folding your
arms and frowning with uncertain trepidation – it’s going to fade about half a
minute into this song, giving way to an almost mandatory sense of enjoyment for
the cadence to which Yungblud sings and the contagiously melodic oddity that is
the song itself.
Yungblud does the whole thing seemingly with tongue planted
firmly in cheek, being ready for any and all haters with a bit of
self-deprecation (see the end scene where Sharon Osbourne runs him over with
her car, after which she and Ozzy dismiss him as a “poser”). The whole thing is
good, bizarre, unexpected fun. Don’t take it too seriously, just let the music
take over and do its thing, you won’t regret it.
Leviathan – The Smoke of Their Torment
Alright, in case I’ve scared anyone reading this away with
the song above, let’s get back to some orthodox black metal. I’ve always said
that this genre has a darkly spiritual quality for me; that its palpable black
energies make me feel something beyond drug-like and almost euphorically
astral. Certainly, Leviathan is up there with those bands that deliver on that
for me, even though this one-man-band (Wrest does everything, vocally and
instrumentally) has never directly professed a purposeful connection with the
occult.
Leviathan is more so one of those bands that descends into
an abyss of depressive thought and philosophy, misanthropic notions, and
existential terror (at least, if you think about it long enough and dwell on
the perceived meaningless of everything). There’s nothing deliberately in these
songs about black magick, Satanism, or demonic evocation, but I’ve always felt
that this band’s music is a superb choice for channeling inhuman spirits;
something in Leviathan’s morbidity must attract those otherworldly energies
that I find myself craving whenever I binge black metal.
While Leviathan has gone spiritual in the technical sense, playing
with themes that are Lovecraft-adjacent (there’s a record called Tentacles
of Whorror), most of its songs really do exemplify the aforementioned
lyrical themes, with album titles like The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide
and Unfailing Fall Into Naught. My personal favorite track at the
moment, “The Smoke of Their Torment,” is an over 6-minute long song from the
record Scar Sighted, released in 2015. The lyrics are sinfully vitriolic
prose (“march toward wicked transformations, slither from mine pallet that I
might maintain your living ash, consume them with your fire, rejoice”). The
harsh vocals are nightmarish, agonized savagery, and the raw, caterwauling
guitar is caustic enough to make the brimstone walls of Hell weep and sputter
plumes of thick, black smoke. Highly recommended.
