Cosmic horror black metal quintet The Great Old Ones releases their fifth full-length record, Kadath. Their album is a concept album heavily influeneced by the Lovecraft novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, which is based on three dreams that Randolph Carter experienced.
The album is presented with a cohesive narrative, which really adds to the eerie and otherworldly atmosphere that you’ll hear on this record. Kadath runs for exactly an hour, and the album is full of melodic and atmospheric sequences that are captivatingly placed on top of riffs which really illuminate that Lovecraftian vibe throughout the album.
We begin things off with the 11-minute opener “Me, the Dreamer”. The song begins with gloomy synths right before Julian Deana’s drums come to pulverize your eardrums. Vocalist Benjamin Guerry is throwing every bit of emotion into his vocals and lyrically gives us an enthralling narrative that continues for the rest of the album. This opener is the perfect way to set you up for the rest of the dreamlike journey you’ll embark on.
The second track, “Those From Ulthar”, continues the cold, despondent odyssey into the unearthly landscape. Here, we have a bit more variety going on in this 9 minute track. It starts with an acoustic intro, that is soon followed by crushing riffs and pounding bass. ‘Mid-pace-lovers’ will immediately be drawn to the steady tempo of this track, which, in my opinion, serves as the perfect speed for Post-Black Metal. This, however, switches up as we head towards the end of the track, as we are served blast beats on a platter until the final moments of the song.
Emotions and atmospheres pour onto us as we head into the third track, “In The Mouth Of Madness”. We are given another long passage here that surpasses the 7-minute mark. On this one we capture what dark dreams Carter can plunge into, and the song is certainly not meant for those with weak constitutions. What really grabbed me on this track were the short moments of blast beats accompanied by infectious, atmospheric riffs, and topped off with ghastly, howling vocals. From here we traverse over the to fourth installment, “Under the Sign of Koth”, which displays a lot of versatility with the drums. The tempo here stays at a steady pace until the end, when we are given short bursts of blast beats and whirling guitars to carry out the final moments of the song. After four tracks in and having completely evokened my inner-cosmicism, I’m convinced these guys have clearly mastered their craft of bleeding Atmospheric Black Metal that’ll “poison” your veins.
What really separates “Kadath” from the rest of the genre, is the prodigious 15 minute long instrumental piece “Leng”. A colossal, phantasmagoric track that is firing on all cylinders. This track has atmospheric Sludge and Post-Black Metal that feels like oceans colliding. Numerous tempo changes will keep you on the edge of your seat, which is not an easy feat for a song of this length. My personal favorite moment on the track is the memorable, earth-shattering solo that erupts in the middle of the song, that’ll have you going back to listen to over and over again. Due to its length, this is definitely the hardest track on the album to digest, but also the most rewarding, and in my opinion, the highlight of this entire record.
The final track, “Astral Void”, marks the end to this amazing saga that has this entire album feel like each song is its own chapter. Intense riffs dispense into your ears one last time, with thunderous drums to back it up. It is a harrowing way to conclude this ambitious journey that The Great Old Ones have taken us on.
My knowledge of the Lovecraftian lore is very limited, but after fully engaging with how this album conceptualizes itself, I will be taking part in learning more about the Cthulhu Mythos in my spare time. This album, both lyrically and musically, showcases that taking that little extra time to search beyond the corners for something obscure and esoteric is very much worth it! The Great Old Ones truly are harbingers of cosmic despondencies!
