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ALBUM REVIEW
- De Magia Veterum - Migdal Bavel
- Transcendental Creations
- "The Confusion of
Tongues" must be a strong competitor for the title of ‘most hostile and
sense-assaulting opener ever’. Indeed, every moment of De Magia Veterum’s second
full-length album, "Migdal Bavel", seems calculated to terrorize the
human soul, like a psychic labyrinth from which there is no escape. Billed as
‘chaotic, raw, technical, esoteric black metal’, this project is the spawn of
none other than Mories, founder of Gnaw Their Tongues – the approach is different,
but the mind-fuck remains the same.
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- After the reverb-drenched,
pain-inducing chaos of the initial assault, the title track seems like a bit of a
breather, with a slower programmed percussion to begin with, but whenever a movement tries
to rise from the fuzzy depths, the urge is to kill it, swarm it with buzz and drag it back
down to drown amongst deconstructed ideas and schizophrenic structures. It takes until the
third track, "The Boat of Uta-Naphistim", before a recognisably
traditional black metal structure makes its mark, as cold, dark melodies, punctuated by
abyssal rolls, are the order of the day. "Curse of Cannan" and "Zaota"
go further, with rather grand synth melodies making themselves heard, a serene and
gorgeous counterpoint to the rebellious, aggressive, searing riffs that sit triumphantly
higher in the mix. This balancing act reminds me of Slagmaur’s most recent work, in
its apocalyptic clash of austere beauty and sheer aural hell.
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- Still, De Magia Veterum is the more
chaotic, devastating and downright weird band. It’s not just a case of reflecting
synths off against icy riffs – black metal has been doing that since year dot.
It’s about sonic subversion. Nothing ever lasts very long – those grand moments
of contrast quickly descend into a technical, maddening soup of noise. If a riff carries
melody, it is intensified until it no longer makes sense. If rumbling guitars and
energetic percussion are, for a change, moving simultaneously in one direction, as on "Curse
of Cannan", along comes the bass with a weird and counter-intuitive movement to
completely disarray the unity. Neither are the incredible reverberation, distortion and
tremolo that of your garage black metal purist – they’re tinged sadistically
with knowingness and purpose, slightly electronic, entirely frightening.
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- "Migdal Bavel" is
plainly the work of an evil genius, set to turn your brain into a mushy, meaningless pulp
with duplicitous layers, fiendish yet buried technicality, and a sense of threat that just
grows as the album develops. The combination of outrageous boldness and utter disregard
for the listener’s finer sensibilities is incredibly potent, and the term
‘extreme’ metal has never seemed more fitting. All that remains to say is that
I’m confident every single one of Hierophant’s crew would enter a paroxysm of
fiendish, hateful joy upon hearing this album – it’s unanimously vile, and
therefore criminal to miss.
- 90/100
- Ellen Simpson
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- www.myspace.com/demagiaveterum
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