There are labels and bands whose connection is so distinct and so unique that they form an inseparable unity: Think of The Ocean Collective and Pelagic Records or Debemur Morti Productions and Blut aus Nord, Ranges and A Thousand Arms or I, Voidhanger and Esoctrilihum. The latter combo now give us Ghostigmatah – Spiritual Rise of the Psychopomp Abxulöm! Amazing stuff!
Excess. Excessive. Excessiveness. These might be the most adequate words to describe basically any Esoctrilihum record, however, the new record Ghostigmatah… is maybe the most drastic embodiment of that notion. Nevertheless, I want to use this review of this great new record to also clarify a few things about excess and its follow-ups:
Excess or excessiveness for their own sakes, just to basically show off what can be done, how far things can be taken are one of the reasons, why music written and performed by brilliant musicians very often becomes boring or unemotional, stale or disconnected – yes I am looking at you, 70s Prog-Rock giants who just took it too far and finally became what they most hated in the beginning: An uninteresting mix of “too good to be true” and “too cold to be touching”. So, excess for excess’s sake will never result in music that people can relate to, that they form their own connection with. Most people who will listen to Ghostigmatah… will understand the record differently from me and that is what good music will do. Provide a blank sheet that we can paint on – but if the musicians go out of their way to paint the complicated pictures for us – then excess is not a positive thing.
How does ASTHÂGHUL, the sole member behind Esoctrilihum now create excessive music? Well, first of all, most of the tracks are always all systems go, pedal to the metal and never look back. The amped-up-to-12 Death Metal borders on Grindcore when it comes to speed and sheer overwhelming tempi. The blastbeats, garnished with cymbal-sprints, are relentless and always on the brink of turning into one single drum-line. They somehow become one vast plain on which the other elements are laid out. The riffs are razor-sharp but not razors and not bloodthirstily sharp, they are the second part of the magic carpet on which this Aladdin flies through our ears; they are there but one cannot say when the chords are changed or when they stop. The third layer which is maybe the most singular one are the synths: wide spheres which might be called Dungeon Synth-ish but there is still too much of the good old Black Metal in there, including aforementioned drums and riffs, to really refer to the ten tracks and more than 80 minutes as Dungeon Synth. The vocals are pure gut-wrenching shrieks from someone who seems to have gone to see the world beyond the Event Horizon and is trying to warn us. The clean vocals are then again so angst-y that it seems as if the wounds brought back from the other realm will never heal.
However, all of these notions and musical comparisons might still not explain why this record is a pure bliss of excess with success: ASTHÂGHUL adds so many more layers to his complex sound including such more unusual instruments like the theremin, the harp, the hammered dulcimer or the nyckelharpa. The result is such a strong connection between all the songs and the whole soundscape that one cannot see the single element but only the bigger picture. To top it all of, he also goes way and beyond with his storytelling on this record, which is in part influenced by the perfectly strange cover painting by Medusawolf. Once in a while I want to quote from a press-kit because I couldn’t phrase it any better: ”Conceptually, the album is divided into four chapters, each of which tells a ritual stage in the long journey of dead souls towards the jaws of the 8-eyed psychopomp Abxulöm, who will finally deliver them to eternal nothingness. A post-mortem ritual that is told in the secret grimoire of the Ghostigmatah, a sort of modern Necronomicon that constitutes another piece in Escotrilihum’s phantasmagorical visionary world” Perfectly easy to wrap your head around, right?
Now, this record shows how far you can take music in order to tell a story, no matter how complicated that one might be; one can hear the moments, when its creator was wringing with how much is too much and how much is just right (over the top)? The latter is what he was striving for and what he achieved with Ghostigmatah…”. A record as excessive, as intricate, as striking, as convincing as possible. And – as fitting as possible for such a brilliant label as I, Voidhanger!
